The simple drone—one of about three dozen we had in stores, specifically designed to train ground troops and battery gunners to hit a flying Disc—is intact enough to come around for another run at their positions in the dunes. I watch Drake set it up in his sights for another attempt at “boxing” it in, not one to give in to frustration easily. The drone is a lot smaller than a real Disc, isn’t nearly as tough and doesn’t move as nimbly, but it has a fairly challenging laser tagging array and does fire light simmunition rounds at random just to keep things interesting.
The drone sprays Drake again, making him duck and cover and reset the shot. He comes back up over the dune quick, but then we all freeze as the drone gets inexplicably swatted out of the sky. It skitters into the sand, MAI telling us its systems have just gone dead.
“That wasn’t me,” Drake says needlessly. He gets up but keeps his new ICW trained on the downed drone, eyes scanning for additional threats, expecting this is a programmed trick.
“I am assuming this is not part of the exercise,” Abbas responds to our apparent confusion.
“Not exactly,” I hear a familiar voice over the Link. MAI lights up the origin as a blip fifty meters behind us and to the east, and I turn to see a blue sealsuit standing on a crest, something long and shiny cradled in his arms.
Abbas’ Nomads come up out of their concealed positions, weapons ready, but Abbas waves them down.
“Paul,” I confirm. The sealsuit levitates a foot or so off the ridge and then glides toward us like a phantom. When he gets close enough I see that the new “tool” he’s holding—which looks like someone turned an elongated Rod into some kind of chrome assault rifle—isn’t the only change. He isn’t wearing his helmet, only his facemask and goggles.
“Colonel Ram, Lieutenant Rios,” he greets formally as he settles like a ghost on the rocks in front of our little observation group. “And I assume this is Abu Abbas?”
“It is,” Abbas says, almost sounding like he’s ready for a fight.
“Paul Stilson,” I introduce, realizing the two have never formally met.
“Your Jinn?” Abbas asks me to confirm, keeping his tone cold.
“He’s been a good friend,” I assure. “And he’s paid dearly for that.” Despite the lack of direct contact, I’ve kept Abbas apprised of everything the Stilsons have done for us, including Simon’s ultimate sacrifice. Abbas takes a breath in his mask that seems to soften him, while I see Paul’s face get harder under his own mask.
“Then you are welcome here,” Abbas allows cautiously.
“New toy?” I change the subject, gesturing to Paul’s “gun.”
“The Rod in its basic form hasn’t served as an accurate weapon,” he says, hefting the modified device. It reminds me of an old Sten gun or grease gun in its simplicity: a Rod with a pistol grip and a fore-grip. There are small holograms flickering over it which must serve as sights. The “barrel” retracts to a compact size as I watch. But what I’m most surprised about is Paul using the word “weapon” to describe anything made by the ETE.
“Your Council approved this?” I ask him.
“My Council has allowed the Guardian teams some latitude in tactical development, given recent events,” he answers with vague diplomacy. “Be assured: Nothing fundamental has changed. We do not use our tools to harm organic life. The Discs are not organic life.” His voice goes especially hard on that last point.
“You came alone?” I notice no ship, no team, not that I’d be surprised if cloaking a ship was one of the Guardians’ new “tactical developments.” But Paul nods.
“We should talk, Colonel. There are things I should pass along.”
I can still feel Abbas’ tension.
“We can talk in front of these men,” I nod toward Abbas and Drake (who’s just jogged up to join us, dust billowing from his robes). Paul hesitates, but nods his agreement.
“Then you should be welcome to talk in my home,” Abbas offers. “It is time we got out of the wind and recharged our tanks.”
Abbas had moved his camp a dozen miles north along the feed line from where it had been when we’d first met. He never did tell me if this was in order to be closer to our base, or further from the unstable situation with Aziz’ band in the south, or just some routine or traditional rotation to keep his position harder to predict. The new camp is hidden and defended just as well as the previous site, and was established quickly, which suggests the sites may be pre-prepped or the Nomads are just very good at moving and rebuilding. Abbas told me it is all done in the night despite the bitter cold, to avoid the eyes of local competitors as well as out of the generational fear of observation from space.
Abbas’ own shelter, however, is set up the same. “A man’s home should have some constancy,” is how he put it, even declining the larger shelter I offered him since his personal residence regularly becomes a meeting place for larger and larger groups of visiting “advisors.” Today brings myself, Rios, Sakina, Anton (whose chair’s wheels “walk” over hatch thresholds) and the unexpected Paul to his humble home. His wives quickly provide mats for all of us to sit on and begin to brew tea, startled only briefly by their unusual (and probably at least a little frightening) new guest.
Paul’s weapon folds up to pistol size and slips into a holster at his hip. He still carries his usual compliment of Spheres and unmodified Rods on his belt. He takes off his mask and goggles, and folds them up into a convenient pocket-size in a trick that would be impossible without nano-construction. His usually neat hair is ragged and dusty, and the dust clings to his face where the edges of his mask and goggles were. And I realize the only other time I saw Paul anything other than sterile was when the Shinkyo had knocked him out of the sky with a nuke. Or picking up the pieces of his brother’s body.
We all take our turn ritually rinsing the dust from our faces—the caked lines that form around masks and goggles, made of sand that abrades like ground glass—in a hand-crafted recycling sink made specifically for this purpose. Then we all settle in around Abbas’ low table, including Anton, who’s gotten fairly nimble at using his arms to get himself in and out of his chair, his dead legs bound together like a merman’s tail. I notice Paul is particularly awkward in trying to sit on his floor cushion, suggesting that either the ETE don’t make a habit of sitting on floors, or perhaps that he’s just a little uncomfortable with this whole ritual. I also notice Abbas keeps his eyes on Paul the whole time, like he’s got a bomb visiting his home.
A small feast is already laid out for us, as we were expected to break eventually from our morning’s training session. There’s fresh grainy bread, a salty paste made out of the nuts Abbas had once brought me as a treat mixed with some unknown and almost minty herb, slices of the bittersweet and bloody-fleshed local apple hybrid, and dried tart strawberry-like fruits. Gratitude for this hospitality is shown not by polite hesitant turn-taking, but by everyone digging in whole-heartedly with the familiarity of close family (but only using the right hand, as traditions are important here).
“How do your Earthside commanders feel about you supplying your arms to the locals?” Paul begins bluntly, nodding his head at the ICW Jon Drake is putting away in its case like a precious treasure before joining us at table.
“You’ve been monitoring our communications,” I remind him for Abbas’ benefit. “You know I’ve also been given ‘latitude’ to recruit local resources, given recent events.”
“But are you sure you want to involve these people against the Discs?”
I give him a look that asks what his real concerns are, but he maintains his stony intensity. I almost feel like I’m talking to his father.
“They are as willing as they are welcome,” I tell him. “And they have a right to be able to defend themselves if they come under attack.”
“Do you expect them to?” he challenges evenly. I don’t answer him. He quickly gives me his argument: “If the Discs follow the same patterns of attack as they did during colonial times, they w
ill only attack nanotech producers, or the military that defends them. They usually avoid other targets, just like they didn’t shoot at your greenhouse and the Nomad camp next to your base in their recent attack. Making the Nomads into a threat might make them a target when they otherwise would not be.”
“They weren’t so selective during the Apocalypse,” I point out, keeping my tone civil.
“But after they destroyed the research, production and military facilities and effectively isolated the planet, they left the survivors unmolested,” he counters. “And they never threatened the terraforming that continues to support those survivors.”
“They may have spared the survivors simply because they expended themselves in the attack,” I argue.
“Leaving seven Discs intact but buried?” he criticizes, now bitterly. “Slowly self-repairing—or at least maintaining themselves—until the day we dug one up and set them off again?”
“That’s one of the UN Council’s theories,” I give lip service.
“Which doesn’t make any sense. More likely they were specifically waiting all this time for sign that Earth—or another suitable target—had come.”
I don’t argue with him, since that’s still my own standing theory.
“The skin samples from the Disc in the crater showed age—it wasn’t new,” Anton cuts in. “Unfortunately there wasn’t anything recoverable from the others to determine if they were just as old, or grown sometime in the decades after the bombardment.”
“I’m asking for your own tactical assessment, Colonel,” Paul presses, almost glaring at me. “Do you believe the Discs could still be capable of reproducing? That they may have specifically remained prepared to address some future failure in their mission?”
“You think militarizing the survivors will make them targets where they otherwise would have been ignored?” I return him to his original concern instead of giving him the answer he already knows.
“I expected that it would have surprised you that Earthside didn’t express this concern for the safety of the survivors when they approved your recruiting them,” he now accuses.
I don’t answer. I think he’s had enough time with me that I shouldn’t have to, enough time to know my thoughts on the subject. He also knows how delicate an issue it is for me to openly discuss my distrust in my new commanders. But he seems to want to hear it—wants me to say it—again. To voice my simmering defiance. Instead, I busy myself tearing apart a piece of warm bread, smearing it with the Martian equivalent of hummus.
Rios and Anton have stopped eating and look at me like something very scary is happening with the world. Sakina, for her part, does her best “bodyguard” and pretends to be deaf, quietly enjoying her meal.
Abbas’ wives bring the tea in well-worn metal cups, nicely timed to break the tension.
“What aren’t you saying, Paul?” I take another track after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. He takes a breath, seems to return to his old self at least a little.
“My Council sent their Disc research files—including my scans of the recovered Disc—to Earthside. They did that one week after the attack.” He pauses a moment to let that sink in, watches me hesitate and exchange looks with Anton and Rios. Anton is shaking his head in denial, eyes wide. Rios just looks stunned, a piece of apple forgotten in his fingers. “We expected that our gesture would be at least acknowledged, politely if suspiciously, if not with overt shock and posturing. But Earthside hasn’t mentioned our act in a single communication with you in the three months since.”
I feel gravity shift in the pit of my stomach. My skin flushes. He’s right: We had no idea.
“Nor have they given you any real explanation of their urgency in ordering your people to recover the buried Disc against your own warning,” Paul continues to cut.
Anton looks almost as pale as he did when he was shot. Rios gives me a look that says he doesn’t think he should be hearing this conversation at his current pay grade. Drake has a surprisingly similar look. Abbas sits firm, taking it all in—his eyes lock mine for a moment, as if to say I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this.
“So I shouldn’t trust Earthside,” I cut to it. “I think it’s clear enough to everyone that I don’t trust simply because my duty obligates me to, but I have to perform my duty. And we’ve discussed why I have to continue to do so, and what would likely happen if I don’t.”
“Earthside knew you’d find a Disc in that crater,” Abbas says it out loud, as if it very badly needed saying.
“Likely they’d studied what intel they had over the years and recognized the EM signature,” Anton offers as objectively as he can. “After what the Discs did, I can’t imagine they just let it go as done. I’d certainly want a look if I was them.”
I watch his hands absently massage his dead legs under the low table, like he’s trying to get feeling back into them, like they’ve simply fallen asleep. He’s complained of phantom sensation, but he seems to do this particular thing when he’s really thinking about what he’s lost but doesn’t want to. He doesn’t look at his legs when he does it, he just looks uncomfortable. When it’s especially bad, I can see his hands shake, and he looks like he’s going to bruise himself he rubs and kneads so hard.
“An intact Disc would answer a lot of questions,” Rios mutters, as if he’s not fully sure he should be speaking.
“No one’s debating that,” I try to soothe.
“It’s the cost they were willing to risk in getting those answers,” Paul grumbles what’s weighing on us all, his body settling heavy into his seat cushion, staring blankly at the table that’s still piled with Abbas’ hospitality. I expect him to be looking at Anton, but his eyes are avoiding the one obvious cost of Earthside’s curiosity in this room. He picks up a wedge of apple—the first food he’s touched—and nibbles it thoughtfully. Then condemns icily: “How much will they risk next time?”
I shake my head a little, sip at my tea. I can hear Anton’s breathing speeding up, see his knuckles go white as he tightens his grip on his atrophying thigh muscles.
“I’ve rerun my calculations based on the attack patterns at the height of the Disc War,” Paul shifts to offer something constructive, now casually sampling a piece of bread. “I’m sure you’ve done your own. Any time you were able to shoot down what appeared to be all of the active Discs, there would be a two-to-four-month period before any new Discs would appear. This may indicate the limitations of their growth rates. No Discs have been seen since all seven that attacked your base were destroyed. And despite the great personal price of our losses, they did not manage strategically significant damage to either of us. At best, they tested our defenses. Or sent us a message. Or both.”
He’s telling me he’s learned from my lessons, my weeks playing “advisor” to the fledgling Guardians, and at the same time he lets me know he can think like a soldier even in the face of an unimaginable loss. And the Discs did learn something critical in testing those defenses: Simon died because his tools had been depleted resisting the Disc guns and grenades, trying to swat them from the sky. He had nothing left to disintegrate the drone before it hit him, or ward it off, or shield himself from the explosion. And now the Discs—assuming they were able to pass along that intel—know exactly how to kill an ETE.
And the ETE know that, too. The fact that Paul is out here—that any of the ETE continue their patrols beyond their Stations—is an act of bravery unimaginable for someone who once thought themselves invincible and has only recently been confronted with mortal vulnerability.
But it isn’t brave altruism that brought Paul here today. It’s rage. He’s spoiling for a fight. The peace-loving life-protecting idealistic scientist I met is now post-traumatic and starving for revenge.
“Which means we may be due for a second attack any day now,” I objectively give him his own conclusion, tempering my own overwhelming need for vengeance. (And what vengeance? Is someone still running the Discs, or are they now masterless, just blindl
y following fifty-year-old programming?) “What’s the status of your Guardian teams?”
“Things have gone quiet since the attack on your base,” he answers slowly, heavily. “The PK and the Zodanga have retreated into their enclaves. There hasn’t been a single encounter with them. And there has been no sign of the Shinkyo.”
“Fear of the Discs?” I consider.
“The factions without the technology to tap your communications haven’t changed their activity patterns,” he reports. “But the ones capable of listening, and therefore likely know what’s happened, are also the three best armed factions, and at least the Shinkyo and Zodanga maintain some kind of nanotech manufacturing. Both are already adept at keeping their bases hidden—maybe they just intend not to present themselves as targets, though for the Zodanga that means curtailing their aerial raiding, which is no small sacrifice. We expect they are either too fearful of the Discs to show themselves or are trying to develop countermeasures. But the PK can’t fully hide: their sites are known and visible and probably just as vulnerable as they were during the last Disc War, and they could certainly be mistaken for a UNMAC military target. Still, there hasn’t been any sign of evacuation or defensive preparations. It’s like they’re pretending there’s no threat.”
“Relative invisibility, combined with an intimidating but purely defensive stance, has been their best defense against outside threats,” I remind. “Perhaps they just hope to show that they won’t rise to defend the nano-producers in the same way their UNMAC ancestors did. If you’re right, if they don’t fight or make nanotech, then the Discs will ignore them”
“Unless the Discs are programmed to target anyone capable of hurting them,” Paul returns. I nod to let him know I agree with the possibility. But there also isn’t anything I can do about the PK. Or the Shinkyo or the Zodanga. I’m down to four usable aircraft and half of my base guns. Rick is trying to supplement our defenses by scavenging the cannon and launchers off our totaled ships to make new land batteries. And Thomasen has set his digging crews to partially re-burying the base structures he only recently dug out, hoping to increase our ability to weather future poundings. Meanwhile, Metzger has been drilling her flight crews to launch fast and land faster in anticipation of another minimal warning attack, while Rios and Thomas drill their troopers in surface response, using the same techniques we’re now teaching Abbas’ Nomads.
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 18