The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN

by Michael Rizzo

6 October, 2115:

  The ETE follow their self-modification with even more liberal evolutions.

  Their engineers re-program a number of Rods so that their physical structure will quickly elongate into two-foot batons. The nano-materials they’re composed of proves resistant to cuts from Shinkyo blades, and by the time the “Guardians” are back on their feet, they’re ready to practice blocking our attempts to hack them. A few cuts get through, but their new skeletons save them from amputation.

  They prove less adept at blocking projectiles, despite how much their enhancements improve their speed, senses and reflexes. Still, they do manage impressively for a people averse to violence—I have to remind myself they’ve lived a half-century with their taboos ingrained. But they learn fast (for people who seem to take their immortal time at other things), and they seem single-mindedly dedicated to this. Perhaps they’re realizing how far an improved defense goes in avoiding the need for an extreme offense.

  (I also find myself starting to covet their technology—having their abilities would make what we’re likely facing in this new world less bloody. I’m also certain that Earthside Command will order me to actively seek to obtain it for tactical reasons, no matter how the rest of the population reacts to learning of its existence.)

  “You still have concerns, Colonel,” Council Blue—Mark Stilson—confronts me as we watch from a respectful distance while Zauba’a drills her “students” by hurling torpedoes at them. “Are the candidates not performing as you had hoped?”

  “Just the opposite: I’m very impressed with your volunteers. But I’m afraid we may still be underestimating how far the Shinkyo will be willing to go.”

  “You think they will take risks more extreme than booby-trapping their colony with nuclear weapons?” he counters with a hint of amused incredulity, then tries to be reassuring: “You have already considered that they may have moved key materials or personnel, and that they may sacrifice the colony site itself rather than surrender it if we attempt to occupy it. But we have no intention of occupying it. We will make that clear at the outset. We only wish to deter the Shinkyo from making further attacks on both of our peoples. Our hope is that we may simply disarm them.”

  “Being disarmed by force makes one feel helpless,” I remind him. “Helpless people tend to be desperate.”

  “We would not take away their ability to defend themselves from other factions,” he insists.

  “Only from you,” I focus. “We learned this enough times on Earth: Your professed benevolence will not be believed by those who have reason to be afraid of you.”

  “I get the impression we are not just talking about the Shinkyo. Or any of the other survivor factions we may need to intercede with.”

  I answer him with a slight nod and a bit of sad smile.

  “Then I expect we will have more lessons to learn,” he accepts. “I believe the term you use is ‘Winning hearts and minds’?”

  I realize he’s just lumped me in with military minds in general. I let it slide. (I expect I’ve made more prejudicial generalizations about him.)

  I hear him take a deep, heavy breath.

  “Do you really think they may go so far as to blow up their entire colony?”

  “As a last-strike option, I’m sure they would,” I tell him. “But I’m more concerned that it may be their first option: Let you succeed in taking the colony, then sacrifice it to disable you in large numbers. Or threaten to do so if you don’t give them what they want.”

  I watch him process stoically. He shakes his head, purses his lips.

  “The colony would need to be still convincingly occupied for such a trap to work,” he tries to deny logically.

  “I’m sure it will be.”

  “Based on the scans, we estimate over twelve hundred people, including children, could be living there,” he tries reason. “How many of their own would they have to leave to bait such a trap? Hundreds? Not to mention the loss of precious facilities and resources—it is highly unlikely that they could have relocated more than a fraction of their numbers and equipment since you revealed them. The cost of such a tactic would be the devastation of their entire society. I could understand if they truly felt they had no other option, that they were sure we would slaughter or imprison them, or leave them at the mercy of predators, but to do so simply in hopes of reaping our technology? What we have can’t possibly be worth that much to them.”

  “Something I heard from the Nomads,” I let him know what I’ve been mulling over. “The Shinkyo leader calls himself Daimyo. It implies he does not see himself as supreme ruler, only a local lord that owes allegiance to another—a greater power. Perhaps they still have some kind of contact with their parent corporations Earthside. Or maybe they just believe they’re still serving those masters. The corporations may have given the colony officers contingency plans before the bombardment to maintain research and production; or maybe serving that higher cause—however defunct—is all that’s keeping them going. And imagine what that may have gotten twisted into over the generations: they may have all been taught from birth to put this real or imagined corporate interest above their own lives. If their so-called Daimyo believes his duty is to benefit his mythical corporate masters, he’d do whatever is necessary, and his people would likely follow willingly.”

  “We can’t know—in any case—until we get inside the colony, meet their leadership face-to-face, see what they’ve been doing,” Stilson returns after giving it a few moments’ thought. “And we can’t simply go and knock on their door and expect them to tell us.”

  I grin at him. “It’s not out of the question.”

  I check in with Matthew at our usual time—1500 hours. I fully expect what he’ll say when I tell him what I intend to do.

  “How’s life in Disney World?” he begins much like he has every day for the past nine days. “You’d better be bringing me back more than just a dumb T-shirt.”

  “Coming along,” I start vaguely. “How’s my chair treating you?”

  “Some of their foodstuffs would be nice,” he changes the subject. “You keep teasing me with your reports on how good they feed you. You coming back soon, or are you getting too used to the spa treatment?”

  “Probably going out for air soon,” I say as a way to let him know the Guardians are getting eager to try real-world. “The kids are coming along with their homework.”

  “You were a good instructor, back in the day.” His tone lets me know that he’s still getting used to the idea of me being out here, but that he’s coming to terms with it. Either he realizes how much of a straw-man I am as functioning CO, or he’s settling into the seat he should have had (if the world hadn’t blown up around us).

  “And you were a good CO,” I give him back.

  “I wasn’t in charge of shit, even when I did outrank you. Everybody knew who was really…”

  Kastl cuts him off.

  “Incoming! Bearing 245 degrees. Low and fast, sir.”

  “Radiation signature?” Matthew demands urgently.

  “Positive,” Kastl tells him after a few tense seconds.

  “Lock it down!” he orders. “Everybody inside now! Blast protocol. Batteries: auto-intercept—fire at will. Did I mention how much I hate ninjas?”

  “I’ve got Jane up on rounds,” Metzger calls in from the Aircom tower, reminding us we have an ASV in the air.

  “Get him out of there,” Matthew orders. “No time for a local landing. Burn for Melas Three.”

  “Jane to Command,” the ASV calls in, “I’m in easy intercept.”

  “Negative, Lieutenant,” Matthew tells him. “I’m not risking a ship for these shitheads. Get out of there.”

  “MAI has a lock,” Kastl announces. “Batteries firing. They’re taking evasive, sir. Using the landscape for cover—target is skimming less than a dozen meters above the surface.”

  “Dumbass doesn’t intend to live through this,” Matthew grumbles. I can’t help but remember the
desperate resiliency of suicide vehicle bombers from an older war.

  “Contingencies?” I want to know.

  “Oh, yeah…” Matthew purrs.

  I get a heads-up graphic showing me the course of the incoming fighter—it’s reading as one of the light Shinkyo raiders, only hot with fissionable material. I fully expect it has a live pilot. But we’d anticipated such an attack (I’m actually surprised they hadn’t made an aggressive move in so long, but they may have been occupied with setting up their defenses). I watch the craft dart into ravines to avoid battery fire, keeping rock in the way of our guns, weaving to run the heat-seekers we throw at it into outcroppings. The pilot is impressive.

  Unfortunately for him, we’d calculated the best low-fly runs at the base.

  “Zero,” Kastl announces as the ship flies over one of the “mines” we planted, a shaped-charge capable of killing heavy armor. MAI blasts a load of near-molten shrapnel up out of the ground. I can see the little flyer buck and almost lose control as its hull and wings are likely perforated. “He’s still up,” Kastl states what we can all see.

  “Coming up on the second line,” Matthew anticipates. But then the ship suddenly throws itself up out of the covering ravine and makes a wild dive in the direction of the base. MAI opens up—now I can see through the battery cams as our guns chew up the little ship. Still, it keeps coming. A heat-seeker takes off the starboard wing as the pilot jerks left at the last second. The ship spins and tumbles. It hits the ground and explodes within a hundred meters of our greenhouse. I can see the shockwave of the blast crumple the walls of the structure, and pressure vents out as an icy mist.

  But the blast isn’t nuclear.

  “Dud?” Matthew wonders as we wait for a secondary blast that doesn’t come.

  “Or delay,” I hear Lisa chime in. “Waiting for us to come out and check?”

  “Maintain lockdown,” Matthew orders, taking her advice. “Batteries don’t have a good line of fire on the wreck. Jane, I need you to come back around, get a shot and finish breaking that thing up. Keep far enough back—assume the thing may still go nuke.”

  “Understood, Colonel,” Jane answers.

  “Get me casualty and damage reports,” Matthew tells Kastl. “Doc Ryder’s gonna be pissed about her garden. Did I mention I hate ninjas?”

  “Having a thought,” I chime in. “Fill you in later,” I let him know I expect the Shinkyo are listening.

  “Convenient they hit us just when you called in,” Matthew lets me know he’s thinking something similar. “I’ll have a damage report for you when you check in next. Give the Power Rangers my regards.”

  “We will, of course, help you rebuild your greenhouse,” Mark Stilson assures me after we sit and review the video of the attack. I can feel something like honest regret in his voice. I’m not sure if he’s more upset by the potential loss of life or the damage to a project that shared their dream of greening Mars. “We will even provide you some of our engineered crop plants. It’s the least we can do.”

  Paul and Simon—now looking fully recovered from their “upgrading”—have joined us for a civilized cup of Martian tea in the soothing setting of one of the Station gardens. I expect Council Stilson chose the setting because he’d already heard about the attack (either from monitoring our base or our transmissions) and wanted to reassure me that one broken greenhouse was not as crushing a setback as it appeared from our viewpoint.

  The garden chamber is the size of a barn, lit as bright as Earth summer, and filled with lush, green fruit-bearing plants. I think I recognize what may have once been peppers, beans and tomatoes. Council Stilson makes a point of picking a small rust-colored orange, turns it reverently in his gloved fingers, but (as usual) doesn’t look like he intends to eat it. Then he gestures and invites Zauba’a and I to feel free to sample. I pick a small violet “pepper” and bite off the tip. It has a pleasant but not overwhelming bite. I remember what Matthew said about wanting me to bring back tastier food. Zauba’a just looks at the plants with her usual air of detached curiosity, but doesn’t touch anything. (At least she’s gotten comfortable enough to take off her demon-mask when not actively drilling the recruits.)

  “You think this attack on your base was an honest attack, or an attempt to spur us to act before we are ready?” Simon refocuses us on the subject at hand.

  “I doubt they would waste a viable nuke on an attack they knew we’d been preparing to intercept, and that would reap them no nanotechnology,” I tell him what I think. “They’re more likely to reserve their functioning weapons for meeting you. Their ship could have been loaded with waste material, enough to show the radiation signature of a nuclear warhead—something to get our attention, scare us. As you said.”

  “And they threw away another pilot to deliver it,” Paul grumbles.

  “They always make their feints look as real as possible,” Simon returns, sounding like he’s been taking my “lessons” to heart. Then he turns to me. “You called this strategy ‘Moving the Shade?’”

  “A feint to see what your opponent’s response will be, yes,” I confirm. “Timed for when they knew I was calling.”

  “What did they expect you would do?” Mark asks.

  “They likely had no idea,” I offer. “That’s what made them nervous enough to kill to find out. They’ve been quiet for a few weeks, but so have we.”

  “Is there a counter-strategy?” Mark’s tone is academic.

  “I’m sure our lack of immediate response has rattled them,” I try. “It shows we don’t flinch easily, don’t react by rushing to hit them back.”

  “Which they’ll be prepared for,” Paul criticizes.

  “We could return the feint, see how they respond,” Simon considers, sounding disturbingly eager to put his new skills into action.

  “They’ll expect that too, since it’s their own strategy,” I caution him. “But there is a superior strategy, one harder to counter. We just have to be sure your teams are ready.”

  Zauba’a picks something that looks like an elongated strawberry, and tastes it cautiously.

  “What the hell was she thinking?” Matthew asks the air between us again. I know better than to offer an answer.

  His casualty report is more troubling than expected. Doc Ryder was badly hurt in the blast. She’d been in her greenhouse. The techs and volunteer gardeners with her report she froze when she heard the call to get sheltered—no, not exactly “froze.” They say she simply turned and faced the direction of the attack, stood there watching it come.

  “Tru was there,” he tells me. “She saw it. She’s pretty shaken up. Tried to make a grab for the Doc, but one of her hippie henchman—that skinny Jericho kid that fawns over her—grabbed her and threw her into the tube. Tru’s banged up, but she got her fanboy in the nuts with that plastic leg of hers when he fell on her. Then she threw on a mask and limped back out to help drag the wounded. Probably bought herself a decent case of radiation sickness for it, but she got Ryder out of there.”

  Ryder took a scary but not lethal dose of radiation from whatever the Shinkyo bomb was “dirtied” with—the worst of it being what contaminated particulates she might have inhaled without a mask on—along with dozens of cuts and punctures from the translucent composite and aluminum frame blowing in, including a serious scalp wound. Tru and the other gardeners got her inside before she suffered from lack of oxygen or decompression edema. Luckily, she was the only severe injury, and Halley’s tending her personally. Less fortunately, Allison Ryder is our best surgeon. We can only hope she won’t suffer long-term consequences from her exposure. Matthew tells me Rick hasn’t left Medical since they brought her down.

  While the base is built to withstand radiation, we don’t know how badly our “crop” may have been poisoned. The Mars-adapted plants are hardly the worse for wear from the blast and decompression, but—like Ryder—they got dusted with some of the bomb’s radioactive load. Tru’s people have begun careful clean-up and testing.
The ruptures have been temporarily patched over with shelter fabric while Thomasen tries to recycle shattered acrylic into useable panels. I pass along the ETE offer of assistance.

  “I was waiting for this,” I let Matthew know after he gives me the formal report. “I was just hoping I didn’t see it so soon.”

  “Are we talking about Ryder, or the latest ninja jackass stunt?” he tries to confirm the subject.

  “I didn’t think she’d be the first,” I tell him, “even with the loss of her husband.”

  “We’re all going a bit goofy here,” he surrenders, “all bunkered down and eating paste recycled from our own shit. Getting shot at by freakshows that used to be our fellow colonists. No contact from Earth.”

  “Everyone’s done the math,” I accept. “Even if we get a call out this cycle, it could be another year or two before we see relief.”

  “At least you’ve made us some friends,” he gives me. “I feel like the fucking Pilgrims, cold and starving and hoping for the locals to bring us Thanksgiving to get us through the winter.”

  “I’ll drop some hints,” I assure him. “Just don’t expect turkey.”

  “I’d be afraid to eat if they brought one.” He’s got his old humor back, at least. And his rage: “We doing something about this?”

  “Holding Down a Shadow,” I tell him.

  Chapter 3: Holding Down a Shadow