“I know, Dad. It’s amazing,” said Christina, not really listening.
“This was not an easy place to come to. There were myriad problems and difficulties, so many reasons to not do it. But they came anyway, and here we are now with the future wide open to us. We have the resources here, we have the asteroid belt, we have a fully established and functioning colony. You’re right. It’s amazing what has been achieved here. Just amazing.”
“Will you be watching the streams of the rescue?”
“What?”
“Will you be watching the rescue tomorrow?”
“Oh,” said Venkdt. “Probably. I might go by Kostovich’s mission control centre.”
“It’s going to be fine,” said Christina. “You might want to be there when they bring them back. It would be a great photo-op, you posing with the grateful survivors.”
“I don’t think so. Those people will have been through enough without having to pretend to look pleased to see me. I just hope they’re okay.”
“Let’s not dwell on that now, though. Let’s just have a nice bite to eat together. Even the president is entitled to a night off every once in a while.”
“Yes,” said Venkdt, “I’ll check the fish.”
There was no answer at Zelman’s house. Her PA said she’d had a lunch date but nothing booked in for the afternoon. She had received a message in the morning, but apart from that she hadn’t heard from her all day.
White tried the restaurant where the lunch was. She had left there in the early afternoon. It was now four.
Zelman had disabled tracking on her comdev. White thought about asking one of his Secret Service detail to override her security settings remotely, but didn’t want them to see his panic.
White put the name ‘Madeline Zelman’ into the news aggregator on his comdev, and left her another voicemail.
A while later the aggregator flagged up a news story about an accident on the Stemmons Freeway. A car had crashed, blocking two lanes. It was understood that Madeline Zelman, the noted philanthropist, had been in the wrecked car and had died in the fire. There were no suspicious circumstances.
The time of the accident was given as 15:05. White had finished his meeting with Cortes shortly before 14:30.
Usually White could stride right into the New White House with minimal checks. Sensors picked up his comdev, which was biometrically coded to him, and allowed entry. Any security or Secret Service agents were happy to let him by on facial recognition alone, happy that the scanners were checking his comdev in the background.
Now his security clearance had been revoked. The silent alarm sounded as soon as he was within thirty metres of the main gate. Automated radio messages were relayed to the security staff on the door, and one stepped in front of White as he tried to enter.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you do not have clearance to enter this building.”
“What are you talking about?” said White, “I’m the vice president. Of course I can enter the White House.”
The security guard held out a hand. “I’m sorry, sir, my instructions are quite clear. Please turn around and leave.”
“This must be a mistake. Let me in.”
“Sir.” The guard gestured for White to leave.
White looked through the iron gate at the New White House. When the old White House had been destroyed back in 2087 this new one had been built here as an exact replica. The original site was still considered a hot zone at that time, but it was thought that a new location, with the old design, would represent a kind of continuity, and that was believed to be important. The White House, they seemed to be saying, is not a place but a concept. It is the seat of the president and it will always exist, withstanding even nuclear attack. Knock it down and it will just rise back up. He had always liked that idea when he believed that his country had the finest constitution in the world, and that it had a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
The thought of that resilience, allied now to the eighty-ninth president, filled him with a foreboding fear. He turned and walked away.
C H A P T E R 3 3
Hostile Inbound
With his commander mech programmed Steiner had little to do for the two days it took to walk to Marineris. The cockpit was comfortable enough and could be set to a sitting position when the drone was on autopilot. Steiner slept a lot of the way, occasionally waking to take sustenance. The other mechs under his command were handling well. Their data suggested they had not been damaged in the crash. Steiner was confident he had enough of a squad to mount a successful attack on any Martian installation he chose.
The installation he had chosen to attack first was the Parry base to the west of Marineris. It was on the outskirts of the city, near the Allentown space port. It was just dumb luck that Steiner had crash-landed on that side of the city, but it presented a great opportunity. He would be able to neutralize the missile base and take control of the port, the single most important communications link on the planet. From that position he would be able to dictate terms and maybe arrange a relay so he could communicate with Earth to get further orders. It seemed like a great plan and eminently doable. He had practiced ground based assaults on the missile batteries repeatedly on the journey to Mars. Now all that practice was about to pay off.
In the simulations he had made use of the aerial capabilities of the dropship. He had used it for reconnaissance and as a distraction. In those scenarios he had a full squad of eleven mechs under his command. Here he only had four. He still felt capable of succeeding. He would use the landscape to hide from the battery, which was primarily looking to the sky, and he would disable it from a distance with his laser. Following that it would be a simple case of advancing on the installation and dealing with any resistance as and when it arose.
He programmed the specifics of the plan into the other mechs and checked on his ETA. Seven hours to go. He went back to sleep.
Steiner was startled awake by an alarm. ‘Warning,’ it repeated, ‘hostile inbound.’ He immediately turned on his HUD to check. About twenty kilometres distant there was an aircraft approaching. He commanded his mechs to stop.
Looking at the display he guessed the aircraft might be an observation drone. It was headed on a vector that would intersect with the crash site of his dropship. It was possible that, now the storm had cleared, the Martians were sending an aircraft for a look-see.
He thought about programming the damaged mech he had left on guard to shoot it down if and when it got there. That way the Martians might think his force was still out there, and it would throw them off his tracks. However, if they then sent another force to take them on where they supposed they were, at the landing site, they would have to pass right through where they actually were. He thought the best course of action would be to take the aircraft out himself.
If he fired a missile the aircraft would detect it before it got hit. Even if he took it out with his first shot it would relay that information back to base; that there was a hostile force firing missiles to the west of the city. He wanted to take it out instantly, so as to give no clue to his presence. That would still strongly suggest deliberate action, but would at least allow the possibility of mechanical or software failure.
The only method available to him for achieving such an end was his laser. The greater the distance the less accurate his laser was likely to be. He thought he should wait until the aircraft was nearer - say five kilometres or so. That way he had the highest possibility of success. The risk, though, was that he didn’t know what type of monitoring equipment might be aboard the aircraft. There was nothing he could do about that. As in all battles he had to make do with limited information, working on assumptions and best guesses.
He programmed his laser to fire in a zigzag pattern, starting ahead of the aircraft and running down the length of its fuselage, then back up. He hoped this would be enough to destroy it, but couldn’t be sure if it would be carrying any armour. He was working on the assum
ption it would be an intelligence gathering drone with no armour at all.
When the aircraft was a few kilometres out he got a visual on it. The cameras mounted on his mech were able to zoom in and reveal that it was, indeed, a standard information gathering drone aircraft, blithely flying along in a straight line at a steady speed. Steiner readied his laser.
When the drone was in range Steiner fired. Watching the visual feed on his HUD he saw the drone suddenly engulfed in a grey cloud, which quickly dissipated. The drone rapidly lost height and any semblance of stable flight. Steiner followed its course all the way to the ground.
Steiner was satisfied with the takedown. He thought he had executed the stealth kill well but even if the drone didn’t see it coming, had it seen him and his mechs before then? Maybe it was headed to the crash site and was reserving power for its monitoring equipment until it got there. Or maybe it was monitoring all the way. It was quite possible that, as far as the drone’s masters were concerned, it was on a routine mission and had suddenly gone dark for no discernible reason. That was what he hoped, but he couldn’t know.
He didn’t know if his enemies had any idea he was coming for them. With no other options open he pressed on toward the missile base.
C H A P T E R 3 4
Rescue
“You’re approximately fifteen minutes away from Ephialtes,” said Kostovich.
“Okay,” said Bobby.
“The docking procedure is entirely automated. If there are any difficulties with the hatch just cut through it with the laser drill.”
“Just cut through it? A hatch?”
“Well,” conceded Kostovich, “it might take a little while, and it might get a little hot, but you should be able to, if you have to. I don’t see there being a problem. Anyway, you should just be able to open up the hatch and float right in.”
“I hope so,” said Bobby.
“I’ve asked the pilot to do a full sweep around the ship when you get there. Get as much visual information as you can. We’re assuming full integrity of the hull, but it would be good to confirm that if we can. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe they’ve tried to scuttle her, or maybe tried to manually launch escape pods.”
“Manually launch escape pods? Would that work?”
“Of course not. But we don’t know what they might have done, is the point I’m trying to make. That’s why we need as much additional information as we can get, hence the sweep. Visual information is still information.”
“Is Foveaux with you?”
“She’s right here,” said Kostovich.
“Hello,” said Foveaux.
“Hi,” said Bobby, “I’m just trying to remember; did we discuss my compensation the other day?”
Foveaux smiled. “We didn’t. Put in a good showing today and I’ll be able to make a case for starting you on a higher grade.”
“Okay,” said Bobby, “so this is like a probationary task?”
“Something like that.”
The solid clunk of two large vessels joining in space reverberated through them both. As soon as the connection was made Bobby and his team released themselves from their harnesses and made their way to the hatch.
The pilot gave clearance and Bobby opened the shuttle’s hatch. Below it was the hatch to Ephialtes.
Bobby turned to one of his team. “Prepare the drone,” he said and turned back to begin the process of opening the hatch. Eventually the hatch fell away inwards revealing the cold, black interior of Ephialtes.
Bobby nodded at the team member with the drone. “Send it in,” he said.
The woman with the drone launched it like she might have thrown a dove into the air. In the zero gravity environment the drone halted for a moment and spun round, orienting itself to its surroundings. Once it appeared happy it disappeared into the darkness, and after a few seconds the whir of its guidance fans had faded.
“It’s them,” said Lund as she half heard, half felt the reverberation of the shuttle docking.
“Everybody, stay right here,” said Lucero. “If they’re coming in I want them to come and find us here, in one place. Everyone stay put.” Although she had always known they were coming, she hadn’t really known it until now. She kept up the facade of cool control but inside she was filled with relief. From internally questioning whether they would actually come, she now found herself questioning their motive. What if they had come with weapons to finish them off? What if they had used the EMP not in order to save their lives but to save the ship for themselves? Maybe their plan was to simply capture the ship and now all they needed to do was wipe out the remaining unarmed survivors. She put all those thoughts to one side as she said, “Keep quiet and await contact.”
“This is it.” said Lund. “We’re safe. They’ve come to rescue us.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” said Lucero. “Let’s just wait and see.”
When the drone appeared the crew scrabbled away from it like primitives before a totem. People pushed and pulled their way as far from the drone as possible. As it moved around the bridge people made way, like it was repelling them.
“Crew of Ephialtes.” The sound came from the drone, causing some in the bridge to actually gasp and others to hush them so they could better hear the message being delivered. “This is Bobby Karjalainen of the shuttle ‘Europa.’ We are about to board your ship. Please do not be alarmed. We have the capacity to take all of you to the Martian surface, where you will be treated fairly and courteously. We are here to help you. Do you understand this message?”
A very low murmur of whispered conversation spread about the bridge. Askel barely heard it, reeling as she was at the sound of the voice coming from the drone. Bobby Karjalainen? She wondered for a second if the oxygen was running out and she was starting to hallucinate. A small floating robot claiming it was Bobby Karjalainen coming to rescue her? Surely that couldn’t be real.
Lucero spoke up. “Karjalainen,” she said, and the drone turned toward her like a little terrier. It floated through the bridge toward her, stopping a metre or so away from her face. “I’m Commodore Lucero, I’m in command of this ship.”
A video screen flickered to life on the front of the drone, and Lucero could see Bobby. He was flanked by a group of people who seemed to be crowding round him to look at his screen.
“Hello,” said Bobby, “how are you today?”
“Been better,” said Lucero. “You’re going to get us all off here, is that right?”
“That’s the plan,” said Bobby. “You just stay put and we’ll come to you. We have flashlights and food. We’ll lead you back to our ship.”
“Understood,” said Lucero.
“Are there any injured amongst you? Any one there need medical help?”
“Negative.”
“Listen,” said Bobby, “I need to know that you’re not going to try anything stupid. All of my people are armed and we’re prepared to put you down if we have to. I would very much appreciate your cooperation, Commodore Lucero. When we get to you, I’d like you to tell your people to come with us in an orderly fashion. We’ll escort you back to the shuttle in groups of ten, okay? If anyone gives us any trouble, any trouble at all, we’re out of here.”
“Understood, I guarantee you our full cooperation.”
“Okay, we’re coming in.”
Bobby had left four of his team on the shuttle. Two were guarding the hatch-bay entrance and the others were guarding the main passenger area. The three with him were bouncing and pulling their way through corridors and stairwells towards the bridge. Their HUDs were providing guidance.
The number of people crammed into the bridge surprised Bobby when he got there. It was brighter than he expected, but still dim, and it seemed oddly surreal that these people were in mortal danger. The floating gave the whole thing the air of fun, when in fact the situation was imminently life threatening.
Bobby recognised Lucero from the video feed. He made his way to her. As he approached
she held out her hand.
“Welcome aboard Ephialtes,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Bobby. “It’s great to be here.” Looking over Lucero’s shoulder he said, “Hi, Askel. You turn up in the damnedest of places.”
Askel wanted to launch herself at Bobby and squeeze him until he squeaked. “Hi, Bobby,” she said casually, like she had just noticed a neighbour at the supermarket.
“Commodore Lucero, I’d like the first ten people please,” said Bobby.
“Yes,” said Lucero. She pointed out ten people, “You, you, you . . .”
“We’ll be back in a few minutes. Do you need anything?”
“We’re fine here,” said Lucero.
“Okay,” said Bobby, “don’t go anywhere.”
Bobby and his team ferried the crew in groups of ten back to the shuttle. At the hatch they handed them over to the team on Europa, who then handed them off to the team in the passenger area. At the passenger area they were asked to find seats and strap themselves in, and then wait.
Lund and Lucero had remained at the bridge and were taken back with the last group.
At the hatch Bobby waited, floating, to guide the last of his charges through. He saw Askel into the hatch and finally only Lucero remained.
“Up you go, Commodore,” said Bobby.
Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) Page 48