“I think we’ll have time for it,” he tells me with his trademark patience. “It looks like we have a lot of work to do here. Where should we start?”
Part Two: The God War
Chapter 1: Old Friends
7 May, 2117:
Bel manages to make us four serviceable “aircraft” out of the wrecked Kite fighters. It’s enough to start making our own recon flights, managing circles of a few hundred kilometers to the east and west, keeping eyes out for any sign of Chang. But Chang’s managed another effective disappearing act, probably taking the time to rebuild his damaged ship.
There has been no further contact from Astarte. Bel insists she’s probably fine, just playing whatever role she’s made for herself within Chang’s ranks, though her silence may indicate that wherever they’ve gone is out of her covert communication range, or perhaps the terrain between us is interfering. Unfortunately, his lack of concern isn’t comforting.
I’ve managed to teach Paul, Murphy and Two Gun to fly the simpler versions of our ride-able ultralights—this gives the latter two their first looks of the greater world beyond their domes. Two Gun’s joy at the experience of flight was unexpectedly childlike, the hardened killer laughing like a young boy.
Murphy has moved back out into the Cast community. He doesn’t share much, but it seems clear his reunion with his people was not a joyful one, and his relationship with his family (or at least his wife) has been particularly strained. I expect he’s seen by too many as a traitor to be blamed for the demise of Gardener and their neatly managed existence, as well as the uninvited presence of the modified “freaks” that keep imposing their help. I expect it doesn’t help that Kali’s tracking implant has manifested as a small blood-red tattoo-like image of a skull on the left side of his throat. As a face-saving maneuver (or perhaps a life-saving maneuver, assuming they all live in fear of Kali’s temper), the new H-K “Council” has elected Murphy “Ambassador to Outside Peoples”. (Not ambassador to the Cast—maybe his former fellows hope I’ll take him far away from them.)
Despite how much I’ve come to trust and value him, it feels like Bel has been doing something behind all of our backs. He’s been taking semi-regular “meditative” walks in the surrounding hills, “studying the spread of life beyond the dome gardens”, and always has some excuse to discourage company. My suspicions gel when Murphy—in his capacity as ambassador—brings a petition to the Cast for the return of H-K dead. Apparently there are two H-Ks that remain unaccounted-for from their attempted genocide.
Paul has managed to restore enough of the “Domers” systems to secure their survival for another several months. He’s also been working with a crew of skilled Cast engineers to begin rebuilding their dome. He’s had no apparent contact with his own people since he arrived, and we’ve seen no ETE Guardian patrols on our recon flights.
I’ve kept myself busy between flights, helping the Cast repair their survival gear, pitching in with Paul’s reconstruction team (as do Kali and Bel), trying to regain some mastery over my mods. My personal flyer has taken on a raptor-like appearance that Bel describes as very “gryphon-ish”. He insists the self-conversion is the effect of a “peripheral seed” to provide useful equipment, much like Chang’s seeding of Disc drone tech. (In other words, I won’t just set everything I touch to morphing.)
As for Kali, she continues to demonstrate an almost reassuring level of restraint, at least in matters of violence. She hasn’t killed, maimed or harvested anyone’s raw materials since her righteous tantrum against Gardener and Palmer. Instead, she seems to be channeling her unbridled malice into a bizarre dance of seduction and abuse.
She’s thrown herself at me with brutal aggressiveness over a dozen times, leaving us both bloodied to levels that would probably be life-threatening to a mortal. And there’s enough left between us (or maybe it’s just the mod-boosted libido) that I let myself reciprocate on several of those occasions, only to have her act as if nothing happened the next morning.
In between these impulsive attacks, she continues to sling idle ridicule at what she calls my “moral and ethical pussification”, flirts with the locals (making Two Gun especially uncomfortable with her Salome-level performances), and—possibly cruelest of all—randomly channels Fera. (And I’m not sure if it’s just an act or if there really is enough of what Fera was still inside her to make the occasional appearance.)
One comfort: Her presence has solved one of my problems. I can pursue Chang with confidence that she’ll protect Tranquility in my absence. She’s easily as dangerous as I am, and far less restrained in expressing her protectiveness of her adopted people. (At least she’s not demanding they worship her.)
And I do have pressing business elsewhere.
On a routine circle this morning, we saw smoke rising from Melas Three.
I tried to hack in, find out what had happened, only to have Burns order the entire Link network shut down. He’d rather they be unable to communicate at all rather than risk my access. So I stayed off the channels, fly away, let them get back online. (I wonder if that was Burns’ plan, to take advantage of whatever concern for my former command I might still harbor, holding their safety to lever my compliance?)
I go back out in the dark of night, alone. Use my “gryphon”—its skin now radar-invisible—to set me down out of visual scan, and hike in under cloak.
The base looks like it’s taken a pounding. There’s serious damage to the Ops Tower, and two of the pad elevators are wrecked. It also looks like they’d restored the surface batteries (with new guns from Burns’ “relief” flight) only to have them all blown away.
Playing detective in the below-freezing wind, I get a close look at the divots in the bunkers, the scarring on the buckled blast doors. Grenades. Lots of grenades did this.
I kick up my night vision, scan the perimeter. The landscape to the west looks like there’s been a major battle, the ridge lines re-sculpted by what were probably UNMAC rockets. I look again at the damage to the base structures. It looks like everything they took came from the west, from ground-based launchers, not from the air. Chemical trace also says it didn’t all happen at once: there have been attacks over a few days. Hit and run. Like the Nomad attacks we suffered, from Aziz’s band. But they didn’t have this kind of firepower. The base has been hammered by dozens upon dozens of grenades.
I decide to take a calculated risk, camp out on the battered flight deck under my coat, sitting there until sunrise.
I wake up surrounded by a squad of H-A guns.
“Captain Thomas,” I greet her casually. She doesn’t answer me, but neither does she move to threaten me. “Please assure Colonel Burns that I mean you no harm and will be on my way promptly. I only want to know what happened here.”
She hesitates accordingly, waiting for orders. I can feel the Link chatter go back and forth, but keep good to my personal promise not to hack in. Then, receiving, she nervously tells me:
“It was Brimstone. That hybrid of Chang’s you encountered at the old Zodangan stronghold. She’s with Aziz’s Nomads, leading them to try to take this installation. She shows up at their head, empties her complement of grenades, takes everything we can throw at her, retreats for several hours. Probably to reload—your own report suggested her tech manufactures her grenade load. We got a few of the Nomads on the first two tries—now they stay back, let her do it all for them. She can take our guns and just keep coming. And she’s managed to knock down our rockets in flight. All we’re managing to do is tire her out for awhile and waste ammo. Sir.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I assure her. “And thank you, Captain.”
Through her visor, she looks like she’s desperate to say something else, but holds her tongue and her position. I wonder if she already told me more than her orders authorized, trusting me to use the intel to help and not betray.
I stand up slowly, summon my flyer, and leap into the air to meet it.
On the way back I get a flash, a compre
ssed message on a secondary Link channel. Voice only.
“Colonel Ram. Do not attempt to reply to this message.” Lisa. “Anton’s found a way to create a distraction just long enough to get this file to you undetected. I include his name with his permission. There are more that I’m sure would help you if they could, but I’ve been discouraging it. There’s too much at stake right now.”
Her voice is level, formal, measured. I wish I could see her face, read her expression, get an idea of what condition she’s in.
“I know you’ve been told that Brimstone has been attacking Melas Three. I expect Burns did that because our on-planet weapons can’t stop her. It’s only a matter of time before she renders the base completely non-operational. And there has been no sign of any ETE activity in over a month now. They’ve even abandoned their stewardship over the original Shinkyo site.
“General Richards is still on schedule with the larger relief mission, arriving in orbit in six weeks, but we expect Melas Three will be taken or destroyed long before that.
“There has been no sign of Chang’s ship on our satellites, but our listening posts have registered intermittent gunfire coming from the City of Industry over the last few days.
“Please know that I am fine. I will try to send you updates as I can. Do not attempt to contact me or hack into our Links, and don’t you dare attempt any kind of rescue. Please.
“I wish you luck. Take care.”
She is definitely holding back, keeping it professional. I wonder what she’s not telling me. And then I’m wondering just how pissed off Anton must be to risk his complacency being documented in the message when a second file comes up, tacked onto the first:
“Colonel Ram… if that’s still you, and I really hope it is… this is Anton. Colonel Ava will probably kill me for this, but you need to know even if she won’t say… Sir… They’ve been… experimenting on her. Worse than a lab rat. Halley and Ryder and the rest of the Med team wouldn’t participate, so they’ve all been relieved, restricted to limited duty. Burns brought his own flight surgeon down from orbit. They’ve been examining her, cutting her open—it’s fucking vivisection. They even tried cutting into her brain. She heals up good as new, but… They’re trying everything to crack her nanotech. Implanting tissue samples into their own volunteers. They even fucking raped her when she was out for surgery… I’m so sorry… I’m just glad nothing’s worked. I’ve got my own hack into Burn’s private uplink, and he’s getting hammered by Earthside and those sick fucks at UNCORT for results.
“Tru Greenlove is on the warpath. They’ve got her people locked down, claiming the civilian population needs to be kept quarantined. They won’t even let anyone work the greenhouse. They’ve sealed it for study, put us back on ration packs. The whole damn base is about ready for a mutiny. They’re so scared of what we’ll do or say they’ve even cut us off from any contact with home. We can’t even walk topside without Burns’ direct authorization. And they’ve still got you listed as missing in action—the public back home has no idea you’re still out there. I’m not sure if that’s because UNMAC thinks there will be a panic or if UNCORT’s afraid folks will start rooting for you.
“Colonel Ava is adamant that you don’t come back, don’t do anything that could make this worse. Personally, I don’t think it matters. Worse is coming.
“I really don’t understand what you are. But Colonel Ava does seem to be Colonel Ava. So… I mean… What I’m trying to say is you still have friends here. I’ll flash you updates whenever I can.”
I almost can’t hear the end of the message. I’ve got my flyer turned for Melas Two. I’m nothing but rage. I want to kill them all. But most of them are my people. And I expect they’ll put up a defense out of duty. Especially if I show them I really am a monster.
(What kind of god am I going to be?)
More of them are coming. Killing Burns and his cohorts will only justify Earthside’s fears, justify escalation to who-knows-what extreme. And if any of my friends and former command help me, Earth will target them too.
Unless…
I don’t have an “unless”. I’m flying in circles, spinning scenarios that end in dead friends (really dead—I only have the one remaining conversion seed, and I have no idea whose it is), maybe even nukes.
I even consider seeking Chang out, forcing an alliance, forcing him to comply with my rules, my terms. I feel sick even thinking about it.
(And what would Lisa do if I came in swinging? Would she defend them, protect them from me? Fight me? Of course she would. She’d have to. She’d know it was the only choice that keeps this from becoming planetary genocide.)
The “unless” comes to me, or at least I hope it does: Even before we contacted Earth, I’d spun the fears of what might happen (and curse myself now because it’s my fears and not my hopes that have materialized, as if somehow this is my fault, that I willed this to happen with my career pessimism). But I had a plan then, a dream: Stand unified—all the peoples of Mars together. Against Earth if need be. But too many (I hope) to justify slaughtering. Especially if we could show the people of Earth what we are, what we have here.
I pushed the ETE to help me with that dream then, needing their strength. Now… I still don’t know why they’ve withdrawn back into their Stations, like they’ve given up on their own dream. (And I wonder what part of that is my fault.) But maybe I don’t need them.
Maybe I still have other friends.
10 May, 2117:
Locating my old friends proves more challenging than anticipated. Abbas has moved his camp off his usual migration pattern, likely to hide from the new UNMAC, who would have all the intel from our files. I have to grid-search the open floor of Melas Chasma, careful to avoid UNMAC air patrols (thankful my flyer has developed stealth skin and geometry to defeat radar). Otherwise, I am trying to be seen from the ground as I fly my patterns, and I use what I know are popular tapsites to refuel, including the one where Sakina last ran from me.
As my companions become more confident on their own flyers, I reluctantly agree to allow their assistance. Time is pressing: Brimstone has not made another run at Melas Three in four days, longer than the intervals between her prior assaults. I wonder if that means she’s preparing for a final push. But I’ve had equally poor luck finding Aziz’s camp. I need intel. And allies.
When our morning flyovers are unproductive, we decide to linger after we refuel. I’m concerned for my more vulnerable teammates—Two Gun and Murphy—but Paul keeps close in case a defensive field is needed.
Bel suggests a bit of deception, color-changing our cloaks to match Nomad patterns, but I point out we’ve surely been seen, and the tactic would be taken as evidence of intent to trap. So I exercise my enhanced patience and endurance, climb up on the feed line, stand tall, draw my pistol and hold it by the slide up over my head. And wait.
They make me wait a full hour. Then, in the haze maybe two klicks west, I see a single figure in thick robes stand up on a hill and mirror my gesture. I can tell it’s Abbas even from here.
I decide we should all go, but slowly, sliding in barely a dozen meters off the rolling terrain, setting down a hundred meters from the figure that still waits for us. We dismount, walk in, keeping our hands away from our weapons. (I’m sure the sight of Bel and I walking on the surface of Mars without masks is disturbing enough.) When we get to the base of the low hill—still forty meters from Abbas (and it is Abbas—I can see him clearly now)—we are suddenly surrounded by over a hundred Nomad cloaks, all armed with firearms (some of them provided by me in slightly better days). All pointed at us.
“It’s still me, old friend,” I try to reassure.
“I would very much like to take you at your word,” he tells me through his mask. “Who are your friends? I know the Jinn, but not the others.”
“This is Two Gun, leader of the Tranquility Cast, where your traders get your food from. And this is John Murphy, ambassador of the Tranquility Hammond-Keller Council, whe
re you got your revolver from. Former enemies.”
“Brothers now,” Two Gun spontaneously insists.
Abbas laughs.
“Still playing Peacemaker? Even back from the dead, returned to us as Jinn?”
“Not Jinn,” I correct him. “Maybe Ifrit. Maybe worse than that. But still the same man.”
“And the other no-mask? Another Ifrit? Or worse?”
I open my mouth to make my introduction, but get cut off by a shout.
“I know him!”
It’s Sakina. And she doesn’t sound happy.
I see her come up the rise behind Abbas, step forward.
“Oh no…” I hear Bel whisper.
I have urgent questions, but let the moment happen. She comes down the slope at us, but ignores me, faces Bel. I can see her eyes through her goggles: pain, horror.
“I am so sorry, girl…” Bel mumbles. “Sakina…”
He knows her name. She responds by doing something uncharacteristic: she slings a heavy rifle out from under her cloak—a fifty-caliber bullpup designed to take down aircraft—and points it at his face.
“What are you?!” she almost screams at him.
He just stands there, offering his open arms. He looks like he’s going to cry.
“I didn’t do this,” he tries. “Please believe me. I am so sorry.”
Two Gun, Murphy and Paul stand frozen, not sure of what to do. Paul’s got his hand on a Sphere, ready to shield us, ready to dissolve her weapon. I gesture them to stay as they are.
“What is he to you?” I ask Sakina as gently as I can.
“He’s nothing!” she spits over her rifle. “A monster! Wearing my father’s corpse! Just like you wear Mike Ram’s!”
The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are Page 20