One Day on Mars s-1

by Travis S. Taylor

  "This is fun!" she said. "Look!" Two SH-102 Starhawks pulled into hover formation behind them and followed the gliderchutes all the way to the bottom of the cliff.

  Chapter 17

  1:49 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time

  Senator! The AI wireless connection to the mecha and sensors! That is the key! Abigail said into the senator's mind. He had been distracted by his charge to protect his family long enough.

  What! Moore fired the HVAR until it ran dry and then he dove behind a dead enemy drop tank for cover. "I'm out!" he announced over the QM.

  "Shit!" Corporal Shelly bounced about ten meters to his right and her left arm was separated from her body at the shoulder by a cannon round. Before she had time to fall several more rounds chewed her to a red bloody mess into the Martian ground. Major Moore started to rush to her, but the armored Marine sergeant landing on top of him thought otherwise.

  "Nothing you can do for her, sir," the sergeant said. The two men belly-crawled under the downed enemy mecha as best they could.

  The signal is continuous because it is a disruptive code not a virus. The signal is controlling the sensors, not jamming them. Just like the AI controls the Kitty! Clever! Abigail had figured it out.

  What do we do, Abigail?!

  Hardwire!

  Spread the word! There was still time to really turn the tide of this battle and minimize further losses for certain.

  Yes, Senator Moore!

  "Listen up! The jamming source is the wireless link between AIC and hardware! Go hardwire on sensors!" Moore shouted over the QM.

  "What?" Washington replied. He and private Kootie were still rushing their position. "How the hell do you know that?"

  "Hardwire between AIC and hardware is the key! Just do it!" Moore repeated.

  Abigail!

  I'm explaining it to all the AICs I can reach here sir. They're getting it done, the AIC staffer told her counterpart senator.

  "Captain! We've got a solution to the sensor problem spreading throughout the fleet!" the XO said. The flagship was beginning to vent gases from several decks and was getting a severe beating. Nine of the ships of the fleet had already been lost and the Seppies had the advantage due to their ghost ships. The Madira was holding up better than others because it was the first to figure out the tactic of deploying its mecha along the hull to act as gun batteries. That tactic seemed to be buying them time and Captain Jefferson had issued orders that the rest of the surviving fleet should use similar tactics.

  I have the solution, Captain, and I am resetting the ship's systems and shutting down any data critical wireless systems and transferring them via hardwire. Now, Uncle Timmy added.

  Good, Timmy! the CO replied in his mindvoice. The DTM blinked off then on briefly in the captain's mind and when it came back up it was filled with enemy bogies and target alerts. "Air Boss, direct all the surviving fighters back into the engagement zone immediately!"

  "Aye sir!" The Air Boss nodded instinctively and reached out to several icons showing surviving pieces of squadrons and began pulling them together in the virtual battlescape around his head. His DTM now showed the Seppy bogies and they were seriously outnumbered. But the Air Boss knew the limits of the Seppy equipment and although there was an asymmetry in numbers the awesome capabilities of fully functional U.S. fighters and mecha more than made up for the deficit.

  "Alright, Demon Dawgs from Hell, y'all heard the Air Boss! We're to form up and insert into the engagement zone at maximum velocity with maximum ferocity!" Lieutenant Commander "Rabies" Chavez ordered his squadron.

  "Rabies! I've got sensors and multiple targeting solutions! This is shit hot!"

  "Roger that, I suggest we get in there and start giving some of those targeting solutions a go!"

  "CO! CDC!"

  "Go, CDC!" Captain Jefferson replied. The battle was coming fast at him now, with multiple splinter groups of large fleet ships and enemy ships fighting and evading and with swarms of enemy fighters that hadn't been visible before that now were literally . . . everywhere.

  "Captain! Sensor nets have been reset and hardwired throughout the system and we're getting reports of large ship signatures in several different locations across the system that just shouldn't be there," the Combat Direction Center deck officer explained.

  "What does that mean, CDC?" The CO had more to worry about right now than some lost ships in the system.

  "Sir. They were cloaked like the others until the sensors were reset. That suggests they are Seppy ships, sir!" the CDC explained.

  "Shit. How many and where, CDC?"

  "Three large haulers and seven smaller passenger-size vehicles at various locations all about two AUs away, sir."

  "Time from engagement zone assuming maximum hyperdrive?" More ships into the mix would be bad. The fleet was getting pounded as it was. The CO didn't like this at all. Hopefully, the tide would start turning now that sensors were up.

  "Assuming a quarter AU per minute sir that would put them eight minutes out . . . shit!"

  "CDC?"

  "Sir, reports from Triton station and Luna show hyperdrive conduit signatures and we just lost the ships off the sensor nets! Sir."

  "Wire in a DTM alert to me of any new hyperspace activity near us, CDC! I need to know the instant they show up." The CO scanned the virtual battlescape around his head and had Uncle Timmy run through a scenario or two, but never liked what he saw.

  Timmy!

  Aye?!

  Alert the fleet that we've got three haulers and seven passenger-sized enemy craft in hyperspace, probably inbound for us. The CO looked up from his virtual world for a brief moment because the XO momentarily lost his balance owing to the ship listing hard to port from an enemy fighter crashing into the exterior hull plating just below the command tower.

  Aye, sir!

  "Holy shit, Bigguns!" Second Lieutenant Timothy "Goat" Crow shouted in excitement. "I've got sensors and there are Gomers everywhere!"

  "Roger that, Goat. Offspring has sensors too!"

  "Well, quit telling me about it, Marines, and shoot the fuckin' Gomers!" Bigguns ordered. Bigguns was running at a full trot turning left and right spraying at Seppy Stinger transfigurable mecha with her DEG and only occasionally going to missiles. At strafing range the guns worked better. Her FM-12 was now completely under her and her AIC's control and just became ten times more deadly.

  "Shit!" she said, because the automatic avoidance surveillance system, which was more affectionately known as the auto-ASS, launched her into a forward flip over a communications dish mounted on the hull of the supercarrier.

  The Seppy Stinger strafing her forced its way through the surface-to-air fire from the Madira and was hell-bent to go to surface and fight mecha-to-mecha. Bigguns tracked the incoming Stinger as it reconfigured itself to bot-mode and slammed into the deck of the supercarrier a few tens of meters port of her.

  "We've got enemy mecha on the hull!" Bigguns warned over the net. "Guns, guns, guns!" She tracked across the horizon at the thing, missing it as it ducked for cover behind an exhaust vent that jutted out of the deck. She cut the DEG off just in time to keep from blasting a hole in the ship herself.

  This is gonna take some finesse.

  Yes, ma'am! Her AIC started plotting possible trajectories for the enemy mecha.

  "Bigguns! On your six!" Goat warned her.

  "I got it, Goat!" She leaped backward through a full backflip over a second enemy bot-mode mecha that had dropped through the lines on top of her and went to missiles for it and guns for his wingman. "Fox three! Guns, guns, guns. Take that, you Gomer motherfuckers!"

  The first of the Stingers got off a round of mecha-to-mecha missiles that were tracking in on Bigguns' position fast at that short distance. The missiles arched upward from the mecha just as her guns took out the enemy fighter. As the missiles arched up and then back over they acquired a radar lock on Bigguns' FM-12.

  "Fuck!" She rolled onto her back, firing at the incoming missiles wi
th her DEG, and then up into a full run using ship structural features for cover. "Eagle-mode!" she cried as the missiles twisted and turned around the structural outcroppings of the Madira's hull. The fighter rolled over into eagle-mode with the forty-millimeter cannons above and below the fuselage of the fighter and the DEG in the left hand. The main drive of the fighter now was capable of flying the vehicle at top speeds and to outmaneuver the missiles.

  "Fuck!" the Marine captain grunted and bit down on her TMJ bite block hard as the fighter was thrown back and forth from incoming cannon fire. The armor and the SIFs held. Bigguns pulled the HOTAS back and pushed full throttle forward, sending the FM-12 into a full-speed high g-load climb away from the supercarrier and up into the enemy swarm of Gnats and Stingers. She pushed down on the right foot pedal and pulled up on the left one, throwing a hard yaw into her flight path so she could target with her DEG as well as her cannons. Bigguns picked up several bogies along her flight path and started locking on targeting sensors.

  I have a trajectory solution, Captain! her AIC alerted her, and uploaded the vector to her DTM.

  Got it!

  Steady . . . steady . . . now!

  "Fox three! Fox three!" Bigguns followed the trajectory and fired missiles at two different Gnats. As the Seppy Gnats exploded, the fireballs confused the missiles that were tracking her and detonated into the shrapnel fields left from the exploding enemy ships.

  We're clear, Captain. Great flying!

  Let's get back on the deck, shall we. Bigguns turned the FM-12 back into an extreme dive toward the Sienna Madira, and rolled it up hard as the deck approached.

  Bot-mode! she thought, causing the fighter transfiguration software to cycle the linkage mechanisms in a whirling rolling and snapping action, leaving her FM-12 standing upright on the deck of the Sienna Madira as a ten-meter-tall armored mechanical warrior.

  Jack! I'm cutting the wireless radio off and going hardwire UDP.

  What?

  Hold . . . there!

  The DTM virtual threat system lit up like a Christmas tree with Seppy Gomers painted all over the sky and ground. Lock-on warnings started blaring and the AIC-fighter connection began targeting multiple bogies.

  "Holy shit, DeathRay! I've got sensors and targeting!" Fish announced over the net. Similar calls began coming in across the planet and the sky. "I've got multiple targeting solutions."

  "Well, quit telling me about it and fucking fire, mister!" DeathRay replied while following his own advice. "Fox three, fox three, guns, guns, guns!"

  "All right, Killers, let's show these Seppy motherfuckers what real mecha is!" Burner ordered the Marine squadron of FM-12 strike mecha into the fray. The FM-12 strike mecha was considered the most efficient high-technology piece of armed lethal force in the known universe and the Marine pilots knew that it was even more lethal in the hands of a full blooded heartbreaking and life-taking United States Marine! Burner never even backed off the throttle or the guns as he rolled from fighter-mode into bot-mode at a full-velocity run. "Full velocity with maximum ferocity" was the motto of the Marine FM-12 strike mecha drivers. Lieutenant Colonel John "Burner" Masterson dove headlong over the top of Lieutenant Colonel Warboys—an Army puke who had gotten himself into a goddamned pickle—tackling a Seppy drop tank that was in bot-mode and chasing Warboys' ass.

  "Guns, guns, guns!" Burner judo-twirled and tossed the enemy mecha over a tank-mode mecha thirty meters to his right and fired the jumper jets on the mecha's feet. As Burner rolled in the air over two oncoming enemy bot-mode tanks he was forced to twist and maneuver the body of his FM-12 in order to get through the onslaught of their missiles and cannon fire—a feat that couldn't have been accomplished without his AIC-to-fighter combination working properly. The missiles spiraled around trying to gain purchase on the Marine's mecha but Burner was too good for them.

  "Guns, guns, guns!" He set the twin shoulder-mounted forty-millimeter cannons loose in full anti-missile tracking mode. The purple and blue ion trail from the cannon rounds tracked across the path of the first, missile detonating it into a nearly perfect round orange fireball. The shrapnel from the lead missile performed acts of fratricide by detonating the other missiles in turn.

  "Fox three!" A missile flew off, taking out a Stinger on approach to strafe him just as Burner righted his mecha standing behind the two enemy bot-mode tanks. He reached out with the butt end of his DEG and slammed it through the cockpit of the mecha on his left while stomping through the back of the mecha on his right, all the while his AIC firing continuously at multiple targets, and hitting them.

  "Sweet goddamn, it smells like victory!" Boulder screamed out triumphantly over the net. "Guns, guns, guns."

  "Scratch three!" One Night replied.

  "BullNutz! BullNutz, you got a Stinger dropping in on your six at cherubs two!" Ace in the Hole said.

  "I got 'em!" Epoxy replied as his DEG targeting system locked on and burned the Seppy fighter plane with a blue-green energy bolt that nearly ripped the Stinger in two. The enemy mecha fell with a hard thud to the Martian ground with the enemy pilot inside lifeless.

  "Oorah, Epoxy!" BullNutz thanked his wingman.

  "Oorah!"

  Chapter 18

  1:54 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time

  "CDC. CO." Captain Jefferson was having trouble understanding the warnings going off in his head. They were launch warnings of undesignated vehicles but there were so many that it made no sense. The virtual sphere in his head changed scale to encompass Mars out past the Belt and all the way to Luna City. There were trajectories scattering the sphere that, at that scale, were merely blinking red dots. But there were so many red dots that the CO was having trouble comprehending what it was he saw.

  "Aye, sir?"

  "What the hell is going on? I'm seeing hundreds maybe thousands of launch warnings. Several hundred from Mars space, the Belt, and, well hell, all over the damned system!"

  "Yes sir. It looks like every damned ship in the solar system just lifted off. We are also getting hyperspace signatures as soon as they clear the gravity wells, sir." The CDC sounded as confused as the CO did.

  "Hyperspace! Here?"

  "I don't think so, sir. Some of the ships going to hyperspace are leaving from Mars and have been in the conduits longer than it would take to get to you. No exits detected, sir?"

  "What the . . . ?"

  "Sir, we just lost the main DEGs on all forward decks!" the XO said. The overheating had been a problem since the Seppy ships had started focusing their attack on the flagship. The SIFs holding the hull plating together on one side would overheat while the DEG coolant systems were overheating on the other and there was no balance that seemed to be working. Were it not for the Marine mecha pilots on the hull of the ship and the Ares pilots in the mix, the supercarrier might have to abort the mission and attempt a run at hyperspace.

  "Goddamnit, Larry, get me my main guns back online!"

  Kira Shavi and her AIC Allison had made an impression on the right Separatist Prime Wife and her daughter. Elise Tangier had turned out to be the niece of Gisele Tangier, the true Prime Wife of the Tangier shipping dynasty of the Separatist Laborers Guild. The Separatists' view of economics had often been considered socialistic by intelligence reports. But from all that Kira could discern, they were nothing less than purely capitalistic. True, the Separatists and all their resources seemed to be spent toward freeing the entire Reservation. But the direction of any individual's resources appeared to be fully owned and controlled by that individual. It didn't appear to Kira or Allison that General Ahmi told Gisele Tangier what she could or could not do with her wealth. Still, all of the wealth of the entire Separatist culture seemed to be focused toward something more specific than just "freedom." This Exodus that Elise had spoken of was the most likely candidate. And it was often that the Separatists would use the phrase "Ahmi was served!" enthusiastically and emotionally, but Kira was still uncertain of its true meaning.

  Kira sat in the small, bu
t very accommodating, stateroom that Elise had put her in once they boarded the Tangier I at Umbra Spaceport on the northernmost region of the Martian Reservation. Kira knelt on the bed with her hands resting in the sill of the large portal overlooking her small bed. Phobos and Deimos glimmered faintly in the foreground of the red, green, and blue planet.

  What a view, Kira thought to Allison. Mars began to shrink below her rapidly as the large cargo ship accelerated beyond low Mars orbital altitudes and approached the hyperspace initiation distance.

  Yes. Enjoy it now. No telling how long it will be before we see Sol System again, the AIC said.

  True. What now? Kira thought and then yawned. Almost simultaneously her stomach growled. It had really been a long hard day.

  Food perhaps? Maybe a shower and then a nap? Kira's AIC had long taken care of her human counterpart since back during her training on the "Farm" and the AIC knew that she often would be too missionoriented to take care of the essentials. That was what AICs were for. That was what best friends were for. And Kira and Allison had been through a hell of a lot in the years they had worked together for the CIA.

  Good idea. We'll take it slow. After all, it sounds like we'll be in this ship a full long month, at least. Plenty of time to snoop around. Kira looked around at the little room. It reminded her of the room she and a classmate in college had shared on a sea cruise that she had taken in the Caribbean on Earth. That cruise hadn't been the time she'd lost her virginity, but it had been the time she was most free and uninhibited in her life. There were some fun memories there and Kira couldn't help but smile and nod from the emotions that were triggered by them. College had been a lifetime ago it seemed.

  The room was about three meters wide and about five deep. The bed stretched across the end of the room by the outer bulkhead where the large oval portal allowed for great views of space. There was a Martian oak changing table and a pine desk on the right side and there was a small couch opposite those, leaving just enough room to squeeze between them. There were three drawers in the changing table. Kira rummaged through the drawers and found basic female essentials including undergarments and socks. In the desk was a notescreen that had a schedule of meals, laundry pickups, and a list of virtual entertainment programming channels. There was also Elise's AIC email address scribbled on it with a note to link to her for dinner plans.