I turn back in time to see that Sakura is no longer behind me, which is more annoying than surprising.
“Time to go,” Paul repeats my order, and the ETE cover our passage to the Lancer’s underbelly locks. I realize five of my troopers are being carried.
The Lancer backs out and continues to blast away at the hangar cave until the whole section of cliff falls in on it—a waste of human ingenuity, sweat and blood, no matter what use it had been put to. Part of me wishes we had the opportunity to study the site, learn more about the Zodangan culture (or at least what they were working toward). But the ETE are eager to get us away from there, away from Harper (assuming she survived being buried under hundreds of tons of rock). And we have wounded to tend.
And, I realize heavily, dead to bury.
21 November, 2116:
Specialists Sheykzadeh, Shaw and Murphy.
Three more funerals. Three more markers on our Boot Hill. Three more names for our monument. Three more “selfless heroes” for Earthside to mourn and celebrate.
“Your initiative in planning and carrying out this mission is highly commendable, Colonel Ram,” Richards actually sounds like he means it. “I would rather you did not put yourself at so much personal risk, but I understand your reasoning, as well as the temptation…”
And none of you—sitting safely back on Earth—have ever been to war, if I believe what you all keep telling us about this utopia that sprung from our devastation.
“You were absolutely correct in attempting a pre-emptive strike against the Zodangan aircraft factories. Despite your apparent failure, your mission did yield invaluable intelligence. The threat of these new nanotech-enhanced enemies is a terrifying priority. Our best and brightest are working around the clock on potential countermeasures. I know it will be unacceptably long before we can get any new technology to you, but we’re hoping we can make a breakthrough that you can build yourselves with your existing resources.
“It was also very enlightening to see the ETE in combat, to appreciate their abilities and dedication…”
This part feels especially fake. I expect what he’s not willing to say is: “We’ve seen how they fight, and we’ve seen what it might take to beat them.”
“UNCORT has attempted to discuss the apparent nano-hybridization of the Shinkyo special operators with Hatsumi Oda. His official reply is that he only just learned that sister Sakura had been running a rogue research operation, wanting to develop their own countermeasures against the ETE, whom they see as a threat for obvious reasons. He promises that he will shut down any further work in this direction, and will share their research into ETE technology with UNCORT.”
And I hear Matthew in my head, grumbling some choice epithets.
“Proceed with extreme caution, Colonel. Your priority is still the protection of those in your charge. However, anything you can learn about what Chang and the Zodangans have in the works will likely be critical to that priority. Good luck, and may God be with you all. Richards out. Ending transmission.”
Vague. Politic. And too damn far from what’s really going on down here to make a reasonable judgment. But at least he didn’t censure me for pulling in the ETE, giving them the Lancer (however useless to us it was).
I feel obligated to tell Paul to keep his people away from us; that every time they fight for us, Earthside is using the opportunity to look for ways to fight them. But that would certainly end me.
I sip a cooling cup of Martian tea, look out at our perimeter through the Command Tower plexi. Watch Thomasen’s crews attempt to patch salvaged aircraft guns (including the Lancer’s) into our ravaged turrets. I know it won’t be enough. One “Brimstone” could bring us down.
Paul calls me before I can get further tempted to call him.
“We may have even more serious problems,” he opens, and I feel dread at the thought of what the ETE would consider more serious. “We’ve gone back to the canyon a few times. The good news is there’s been no sign of Brimstone. The bad is what we think we found left behind. The scrap littered on the canyon floor was a mix of old and new, based on the age of the cuts made during salvage. The fresh we were able to match to the United States built colonies. The only ones still standing in the region are the PK sites. So we sent flights to look them over. Industry and Pioneer still look the same, at least from the air. But Frontier is… well… It’s gone.”
He sends me video. The site is a series of freshly excavated craters.
“Granted, it was likely their least-viable colony. But this especially worries me, given the illustrations we saw on the walls in the Zodangan hangers…”
There’s an impression in the sand. Flattened, pressed down, rectangular, with clean edges like someone laid a big plank on it. But when Paul zooms out, I see that the compressed area is almost the size of the colony site. Handy pop-up graphics confirm: the rectangular “footprint” is two-hundred-fifty meters long and twenty-five wide.
“We’ve been searching Candor,” he tells me heavily. “It’s a big place, but there’s been no sign of any other activity, certainly nothing as big as the depressed pattern in the regolith indicates. It may be some kind of deception, but we need to be sure. We may need to go up into Ophir. They could be keeping out of the atmosphere nets intentionally to avoid us.”
“Then they could also be operating outside the valleys,” I take it further. “But that assumes they’ve got the resources to maintain a fully sealed environment for what may be hundreds or even thousands of people.”
“And there’s been no unusual draw off our feed lines.”
I stew over that, looking at the hundreds-of-meters-long “footprint” in the sand, thinking about how thoroughly outgunned (and apparently out-maneuvered) we are, how easy it would be for Chang to wipe us out.
My brain has been spinning sleeplessly over this since Chang pounded us barely a month ago. Now the fear that he’s got even greater military assets…
But every option—sensible or fantastical—that I can generate would be unacceptable for Earthside. They would much rather lose us than cross those lines.
(“Your priority is still the protection of those in your charge.”)
“Brimstone—Harper—she had tech that could resist your tools,” I remind Paul, focusing on another looming monster.
“Chang probably learned from his first encounter with us,” Paul expects. “And this proves his technology is somehow superior even to ours.”
What he doesn’t say: that might support the theory that Chang is somehow from the future, not just some mad genius tinkering in a cave somewhere.
“Harper lost her legs and her hand—and maybe more than that—during our first encounter with the Zodangans, the one you broke up,” I let him know, wondering: “How long was Chang working on her?”
“How long has Chang been working with the Zodangans?” Paul distills the question, “or the PK?”
“Janeway was dropping hints months ago, like he had something he was keeping close to the chest,” I recall. “But then, so was Sakura.”
“I doubt the Shinkyo have any alliances with Chang,” Paul easily discounts. “Unless that was a show she put on for us. She has sacrificed her own for less.”
“Chang would go after them because of their nanotech work, assuming he was honest about his mission,” I go back to reason. “More so now that they’ve shown how far they’ve progressed.”
“With technology they’ve probably reverse-engineered from us,” Paul gives me his frustration.
I smile involuntarily.
“What?” Paul wants to know.
“Chang. He’s awfully preachy about wiping out all nanotech…”
“Except his own, which is well ahead of anything he says he needs to take away from the rest of us,” Paul lets me know he’s been thinking the same thing. Then he gets back to pressing concerns: “What do we do about the Shinkyo?”
“At least we know we can’t count on them as allies. Militarily speaking, I’d
love to beg, borrow or steal their developments for our own use,” I give him something honest that I’m sure will scare him, “just like I‘d love to have your tech as well. But that’s out of the question, if for no more reason than my command would never accept it. But I need to protect my people.”
“And you can’t,” Paul says it.
“I’m content to let the Shinkyo toe-to-toe it with Chang, just so he has another thorn in his side, but I doubt they’ll be able to do much more than hold their own against him.”
“A more frightening thought: What would they be if they could beat him?”
“Then they’d just become a different version of the threat he poses to all of us,” I downplay, though I have been thinking of that nightmare as well.
I see Paul simmering on something for a few breaths before he decides to tell me:
“My people, while not as imminently threatened as yours, are becoming similarly frustrated, disillusioned. And like you, there are things that would make military sense that my leaders—that most of us—would also never accept.”
“And Earth would fear you all the more,” I add the obvious to it.
He takes another deep breath.
“It’s no secret that Earth is racing to find some way to fight us, even destroy us,” he cuts to it. “Chang’s threat gives them even more reason to accelerate an agenda they already had.”
“And what are you going to do?” I ask, not specifying whether I’m asking about the ETE or Paul personally.
“We will protect life on this planet,” he reads me the line, but there’s a new edge under it.
“Just don’t become as single-minded as Chang,” I warn, making it sound like I’m joking.
“You, too,” he bounces back to me with gravity.
I find Sakina in one of the last places I would have expected. But then, too much is changing too fast.
Out back beyond the aircraft pads, Horst and Rios are checking her out on a selection of heavy trooper weapons: chain guns, grenade launchers, vehicle-killing sniper rifles. A selection of H-A suits are along for the “lesson”. (Apparently Sakina’s overcome her reluctance to “train” in front of others, or she’s just that urgent.)
“The enemy is heavily armored and can at least partially regenerate,” Horst is wasting air reminding her. “But Lady Sakura’s iron giant didn’t get up again after he lost his head, and Brimstone looked like she was in trouble when you got blades deep inside her suit. If you could get a serious HE charge in there, past her armor, it might do her. Or whatever we seen next.”
“The trick will be staying out of reach while you do it,” Rios adds, having reviewed our mission videos extensively.
“We must assume they will adapt,” Sakina says firmly, taking aim with a big-bore long gun. She takes her time, and it kicks her hard when she takes the shot, but I see a chunk of scrap a few hundred yards downrange get torn into, then explode.
“So far, we haven’t seen Chang use defensive fields like the ETE,” I drop into the conversation. Horst has his troopers snap-to, but I tell them to get back to it. “He seems confident his tech can take a pounding.”
“It may be about the power requirement,” Rios offers. “The ETE have probably perfected some kind of ultra-small-scale cold fusion for their tools, possibly muon-catalyzed if it’s based on any of the colony-era research.” He’s apparently been doing a lot of research of his own, probably hovering over Rick and Anton, pouring over whatever UNCORT has been willing to send us. Doing his job. “The most energy-hungry thing we’ve seen Chang use is probably the lift system for his flagship, but even that was conventionally assisted by fans and jets.”
“He’s relying on the inherent qualities of his materials,” I guess.
“Kind of like what passed for his own body,” Horst extrapolates.
“And what the Shinkyo managed to pull off with their metal man,” Rios agrees.
If it wasn’t so grim a subject, I’d smile: At least my people are trying to adapt to the terrifying (and dizzyingly fast) evolution of warfare on this world.
Sakina is ignoring us, sizing up another shot. She blows away a junk fuel canister at three hundred yards.
“Can this weapon be made more portable?” she wants to know.
“We have bullpup versions in the armory,” Horst tells her. “Moves all the action back behind the trigger into the stock, makes it about a foot shorter with the same barrel length. Blast is a little more severe for the shooter.”
She hefts the long gun, looks like she’s considering what the difference would be.
“I’ll get you one,” Rios offers before she can ask. She nods, but there’s no smiling for her, either.
At “home” after dinner, her new rifle sits propped in the corner next to her mat, complete with a belt of thick magazines.
“The problem with weapons like that is you need material support,” I tell her as she takes off her armor. “Run out of ammo and it’s just a poor club. Dead weight.”
She ignores me initially, keeps undressing as I watch her from the bed.
“I thought you wanted me to learn how to shoot,” she eventually says, her voice level.
“I’m wondering if that was such a good idea.”
“It was a necessary evolution,” she stays distant. “My blades could not effectively neutralize Brimstone. Or Chang.”
“I doubt anything we have will serve that purpose.”
“You think I should avoid the fight.” It isn’t a question. But then she asks: “Would you?”
“I can’t.”
“Then I cannot,” she gives me firmly, still not looking at me. I hear her take a breath before she says: “Are you planning to die?”
“I think I’m expecting it,” I admit. “I can’t give ground, but I know I can’t defend it. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so off my game lately. I’m not into ‘last stands’.”
“But that is what your commanders expect you to do.”
She’s down to her mail shirt and her environment suit. She kneels on her mat at my feet. I reach out, make her take my hand, hold it. Warm. Alive.
“Without saying so,” I tell her.
I hear her take another deep breath, center herself.
“I know you. I have studied you. You win because you change the rules of the battle, even if it means defying your superiors.”
“That defiance has parameters,” I let her down, “limits I can’t cross.”
“They have not ordered you to die.”
“I don’t think we can win this fight,” I say it.
“You can,” she insists firmly.
My turn to breathe.
“Not if I have to defend all these people.”
“They can defend themselves,” she believes. “And they will fight for you, whether or not you ask them to.”
“There are limits I don’t think I can cross,” I say it out loud.
I see her smile, just with the corner of her mouth, just for an instant. Her head is still down, not looking at me.
“I cut the genitals off of my enemies,” she reminds me, “and you promised me that you have done far more shocking things in your time.”
I realize I don’t have anything to say to that. So I get down off the bed, down on the mat with her, and I kiss her like this is the only time we have.
Chapter 6: Stormcloud
24 December, 2116:
I’m sure history will call it the “Christmas Eve Summit”. Or maybe the Christmas Eve Tribunal.
The most promising part for me is that Mark Stilson—Council Blue—actually agreed to leave the sanctuary of his Station and come to us in person. He even folds away his helmet to greet me as soon as he clears the airlock, and more impressively keeps it off, even if it’s only because he knows he’ll be on video and under scrutiny.
Paul is with him, but whoever else he’s brought in his ship (one of their transports, not the Lancer) stays aboard and out of sight. Perhaps he doesn’t want this to look like any
kind of show of force, while his son serves as a familiar face, a buffer for the father’s usual chilly aloofness. Or perhaps he wants to show that even “nano-contaminated freaks” have families (and remind Earth that he’s already lost one son helping us).
Kastl had a team go to extra lengths to clean the Command Briefing Room, hoping to make our guest however more comfortable. I discourage him from setting out food or drink—I don’t want any Earthside eyes judging the ETE’s reluctance to eat anything they haven’t processed as either arrogance or a potential weakness to exploit. We can always offer something we’ve grown or made fresh later, when we don’t have billions of suspicious and prejudicial eyes on us.
“Thank you again for coming, Council,” I feel obligated to repeat, offering him a chair centered on the window side of the table so that he’ll have the landscape of Mars visible behind him, including the bluer sky that he and his people have worked all these decades to provide us.
He gives me a nod, his expression reminding me he isn’t here for my benefit. It’s a real planetary threat (or what may now be an interplanetary threat) that brings him out into the dust and human smells. Then he does something even more impressive: he takes off his gloves, folding his bare hands in front of him on the table top as he settles. (Watching very closely, I think I catch a fraction of a second’s uncertain reflexive discomfort: his hands touch the table, recoil very slightly, then settle and stay put with what looks like the effort of will.)
Helmet and gloves off, he looks remarkably normal, plain, like any scientist in his late thirties who keeps himself reasonably fit and professionally groomed. What will damn him is that he looks pretty much exactly like he does in the file images from fifty years ago. (At least his son—a young boy at that time—has no unsettling Dorian Gray image files to show his lack of aging.)
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 31