The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN

by Michael Rizzo

8 October, 2115:

  The Lancer kicks up a lot of dust as it turns lazily and slides off, leaving me behind. Alone.

  I turn and face the slopes of the built-up crater I know covers the Shinkyo Colony, find myself a fairly level and un-rocky patch of sand in easy view of it, and sit down formally on my knees. I unclip the Shinkyo sword from my belt, scabbard and all, and set it gently at my right side, hilt forward. I hope this is still recognizable as a traditional gesture that I come with no violent intent, to meet with an enemy on peaceful terms. Then I sit at meditative attention and wait, breathing slowly and calmly to make my canisters last.

  To their credit, they leave me like that for almost a full hour, testing my resolve (and my preparation, since I’m well into my second can of O2). Thankfully, sitting on one’s knees is much easier in Martian gravity than I remember from hours spent doing so in martial meditation on Earth in my youth. Also thankfully, it’s a mild morning, just above freezing, and the sky is clear except for the “thunderheads” created by the ETE Stations that dot the far horizons. The wind is gentle enough to make the sand dance just a bit around me. It makes enough of a low howl to help mask the grinding even the lightest footsteps make on the loose gravel.

  I do hear them coming, but still they appear more suddenly and in greater numbers than the sounds they made betrayed. I am surrounded by at least two dozen now-familiar Shinkyo armored sealsuits. They cover me with their colony PDWs—all very professional, no theatrical posturing with swords or other medieval weapons. I don’t move as one of them collects my sword. I slowly and deliberately offer him my sidearm as well.

  They don’t need to speak. Their gestures are clear enough. I get up, stretch my legs, and walk in the midst of them toward the crater. Not surprisingly, my Link is no longer receiving or transmitting.

  The entrance to the colony—or at least the one they’ve deigned to show me—is hidden in a shallow rut: a space between rocks barely big enough to wedge a body through. (I immediately consider what a good choke-point it makes, but then notice that several of my guards have already vanished from the surface—it only makes sense that they have multiple entries.) The hatch hidden in the fissure would not be visible unless you were within a few meters of it.

  There is absolutely no light once they prod me inside the airlock (and as soon as it’s pressurized, they’re quick to take my mask and goggles, which would have given me a night-vision HUD). And then there’s no light in what must be the corridor beyond. I can only hear the shuffle of soft-soled boots, the whisper of their uniform fabric as they move, and my own breathing. The walls feel like they should be close, but when I reach out my hands I only feel my guards as they gently but firmly guide me in the general direction I assume takes me under the crater. I wonder if the darkness is just to disorient me for the sake of prisoner control, or if they don’t want me seeing their facilities. I count over two hundred steps before a hatch opens and nearly blinds me.

  Another two-dozen Shinobi flank my path—I can’t tell if any of them were the same ones who met me on the surface. No one says a word, and I assume I need to keep moving forward.

  The storage-bay-sized chamber in front of me reminds me of a combination of ETE architecture and Japanese neo-corporate aesthetics: Two stories high, brightly lit, the walls a facsimile of traditional shoji panels. There is one raised platform centered on the opposite wall. In either corner are small gardens with water running over rock. The floor is all a kind of woven tatami mat (though I doubt it’s made of real straw), and there’s a strip of red cloth forming a pathway for me to walk on into the center of the room—I presume that they provided it so that the barbarian wouldn’t have to take off his boots indoors. The air smells of sandalwood.

  A handful of guards kneel in a neat row along each side wall, at stiff attention, swords sheathed at their hips. In each corner is another guard armed with a colony PDW. They all wear their masks.

  The opposite wall slides open—it’s apparently made of shutters—and two figures walk in onto the platform: The first is a Japanese male I guess to be in his late sixties, his white hair shaved to a stubble, heavy-set, wearing a black silken robe patterned with Shinkyo corporate crests. He has narrow eyes and a slight thin smile that looks like it’s been frozen on by some kind of stroke. The second is a much younger female wearing a traditional kimono of similar black fabric, her hair done up in traditional style, large ornate hairpins (possibly weapons) protruding from the bun on the back of her head. I cannot see all of her face, because she’s wearing small mirrored goggles and a breather mask. A more ornate version of the Shinobi sword is shoved into her crimson sash.

  The man faces me and gives a slight bow, which I return. His smile widens at my display of manners, and he gestures for me to sit on the floor before the platform. He takes a seat in front of me on the platform, the girl kneeling just behind him at his right. Without a word being said, two more girls—these in white kimonos without masks—bring a cup of steaming tea, one for their master and one for me, which I accept with a slight bow. From the smell of it I can tell it’s not Martian tea, but actual green tea (either from Earth or some on-planet garden). I lift the cup to drink, but then hold until my host drinks first. Again, he widens his smile.

  “You are as unexpectedly civilized as they say, Colonel Ram,” the white-haired man says with only the slightest accent.

  “Thank you for the tea,” I return. “It’s very good, and the morning air was quite brisk.”

  He grins again, as if appreciating that my manners are a means of keeping my intentions masked. He sips his tea, then sets the cup aside. As if that was a signal, the panel behind him opens and one of his guards comes in, carrying a sheathed katana in his hands. The guard walks forward and presents the weapon to me. I glance at the white-haired man, who nods his permission, and I take the weapon reverently and examine it. It’s a traditional design: long, black cord-wrapped hilt in the diamond pattern, with a plain round iron guard cut with the eight-spoke wheel symbol of the Noble Eightfold Path. The plain scabbard is mirror-black lacquer. I use my thumb to pop the seal between blade and scabbard-mouth. It has a brass collar, and the first inches of the blade reveal a fine “watering” that belies thousands of folded layers. It has the clouded edge of a weapon differentially tempered—diamond hard on the cutting surface, while the body maintains resilient flexibility.

  “May I?” I ask before drawing the blade all the way. The guards do not even shift positions as I slide the slightly curved blade out into the air. It’s light, the balance making it feel almost weightless. I nod in approval and slide the blade back into its home.

  “The blade looks traditional,” the white hair tells me, “but it is nano-forged: stronger and sharper than anything our best smiths could have made by hand. And now it is a gift to one who can appreciate it, Colonel.”

  I give him a bow of thanks, then gently set the weapon at my right. I expect he knows my taste for swords, and calculated the offering to strike a personal chord.

  “I assume I am addressing the Daimyo Hatsumi?” I press us forward. He nods.

  “You have learned my name from Rashid’s abomination,” he assumes, keeping his polite tone and grin. “I expect she will be joining us shortly?”

  I don’t answer. He gestures to the masked woman at his side.

  “You have already met my daughter Sakura, Colonel, when she made herself a willing prisoner of the ETE…” The mirrored lenses stay locked on me as her head bows. I finally recognize the lines of her face. She must be wearing a wig, unless they have a means to grow hair back that rapidly. “The ETE took your advice: they dropped her and her confederates within a day and night’s walk, stripped to only a plain worker’s jumper they provided, supplied with barely two days’ worth of air and water each. Unfortunately, an increase in the patrols of your sand-dog allies delayed their progress.

  “They say that survival is dependent on doing things you would never consider under other circumstances. My daughter s
acrificed first one and then the other of her comrades. She wore their clothing for warmth, slept under their bodies for shelter, used their air, drank their fluids, and thus she returned to us after three days and two nights, bringing your warning. Exposure damaged her eyes and her lungs, but as she did not fail in her true mission, she did not need to forfeit her life. Her fingernails have also been replaced.”

  The girl draws her hands out of her oversized sleeves. Her prostheses now make no attempt to mimic life: her fingertips are coned in sharp steel.

  “Be assured she bodes you no ill-will, Colonel. In fact, you made quite an impression on my daughter. Her experience with the creatures who call themselves men on this world has been only of slaves, victims, cowards and animals. She tells me you live up to your legends, and I can see this now myself.”

  “Then perhaps we can get to the business at hand?” I shift the subject aggressively. Hatsumi nods.

  “You come here because your ETE friends have decided to pretend to be warriors,” he coolly derides. “I expect you have many doubts about the wisdom of this course of action. You know that toys do not make bushi.”

  “And you already know what their toys can do,” I allow him.

  “You have given us more than enough time to prepare contingencies,” he says like I’ve been conspiring with him all along.

  “The winner of any battle is just the one who can claim to have lost the least,” I try. “The skilled general will find a way to win without fighting. Is there an alternative to what’s coming?”

  “What you really want to know is why it must come, Colonel Ram,” he corrects me. “You want to know our reasons for setting this chain of events in motion.”

  “Knowing what you seek, any number of men would have reason,” I give him. “But I don’t believe you seek the prize for your own gain, Daimyo.”

  “You have seen clearly,” he tells me. “Our mandates were made plain before the bombs fell. We continue to serve the dream of our Guild Corporations—our lives are theirs. They will come back, and we will be ready with a competitive edge no other conglomerate or nation can match.”

  “Except the ETE,” I play in. “But the ETE do not seek profit. They will not share their advances with anyone.”

  “Environmental Terraforming Enterprises is a corporate endeavor,” he corrects me, “and more insidiously so, because they set out to make all industry on this world dependent on them. Then they exploited the violence of the early colony years—the Eco and Disc threats—to gain even greater advantages, by pirating the technologies entrusted to their safekeeping. And when the bombs conveniently wiped out their colonial ‘partners,’ none were left to challenge their claim on those technologies. I’m sure you have had your own suspicions about the origin of the Discs, Colonel.”

  “The ETE have voiced similar suspicions regarding you,” I return, “especially given your recent activities.”

  He doesn’t answer immediately. He sips his cooling tea.

  “And what suspicions do you have, Colonel Ram?” he probes.

  “Anonymous drones effectively destroy all corporate interests on the planet. Any productive agency that remains is suspect.”

  “Can you remain so objective?” he presses, still all polite semi-smiles.

  “I suspect you’ve had no contact with Earth since the planet fell silent.”

  “Neither have the ETE,” he counters. Then softens: “No transmission could be made that would not risk detection by the wrong people. The risk was neither acceptable nor necessary—our interests were secure and have remained so without assistance from home.” I note that he doesn’t address the issue of stealth craft like the Lancer.

  “And how did you intend to go about revealing yourselves once Earth returns?” I address the obvious problem.

  “I would tell you that we did not plan to, that we would wait patiently and then covertly contact our Guild some time after Earth shuttles begin returning in numbers that would mask our activities. Our Guild could then ‘rebuild’ on this site, and shortly thereafter would be able to export our work as new development.”

  “But you’ve already revealed yourselves to us as well as the ETE,” I expose, giving him an edge of a grin.

  “You are correctly confident that I do not intend to kill all of you in the hope of re-concealing our existence,” he says almost sweetly.

  “Or you know such an outcome is too far from certain,” I argue. “That, and your most effective weapons against the ETE are messy enough to be seen across space. I’m sure you’ve considered how Earthside might interpret nuclear detonations on the surface well before you used your first weapon. You would know that fission explosions are very likely to renew their fears of some extreme nano-horror. You’ve already formulated another plan.”

  Hatsumi smiles and gives me a little bow.

  “I find I enjoy speaking with you, Colonel Ram, even more than I expected I would. An alliance between us could prove mutually profitable. Your people struggle for a foothold, and I expect you will face many adversaries. And if you are willing to enter into a small deception with us, it would go a long way to smoothing re-integration with Earth.”

  “I had heard you had little tolerance for Gaijin.”

  “Abdullah Rashid proved what a filthy animal he was,” Hatsumi explains with the slightest edge of disgust coming through. “I count myself wise in choosing to remove him from our midst before he could further contaminate us. And no, Colonel, I am not speaking of his pathetic faith or the color of his skin. Has his daughter not told you?”

  I start to respond in cool defense of Zauba’a, but I hesitate when I realize his choice of word.

  “She told me that Rashid was her grandfather,” I make an attempt at correction that I already know I’m going to regret.

  “He was that as well,” Hatsumi takes barely-masked glee in telling me. “What did you think those trash did, living like animals in the sand?”

  I am not at all surprised when I feel the air whistle next to my ear. Neither is Hatsumi, or at least his daughter: Sakura is almost as fast as Zauba’a, up on her feet and in front of her father, swatting the thrown torpedo away only inches before it hits Hatsumi square between the eyes. Her arm in her sleeve clangs when it makes contact with the heavy metal projectile—she has her own armor on under her delicate ceremonial gown. The torpedo skitters across the mats and bounces off the left wall between two of the guards (missing one by less than a foot). The guards all come up on one knee, and hands go to sword hilts, but they do not draw, nor do the ones with guns fire.

  I shift and pivot on my knees but do not get up, turning to watch Zauba’a part the panels I had entered through. Instead of continuing her attack, she strides calmly into the gauntlet of guards.

  “Rude,” Hatsumi criticizes, absolutely calm, “but not unexpected. Your offer of violence is accepted, animal. My daughter has been as eager to test herself against you as you are eager to challenge us.”

  “I am eager,” Zauba’a confirms, her voice almost a growl through her demon mask, “but I can delay my satisfaction.”

  On cue, two blue ETE sealsuits—Paul and Simon—drop through the ceiling of the chamber. Simon lands behind Zauba’a and Paul is at my side, their Spheres creating defensive fields around us as I get to my feet. Paul slides a pistol into my right hand.

  Hatsumi responds less to us than he does to the earpiece he must have in his left ear, and I see him grin.

  “Your friends have arrived in amusing numbers,” he lets me know, then commands: “Ichi!”

  We can hear and feel the deep booming rumble of a nuke going off somewhere on the surface above. Hatsumi must also have an optical implant or contact lens that lets him see tactical feed without a visor or glasses, because his eyes dart as if scanning something we can’t see.

  “Ni!” he barks after a long minute, and another boom rattles us.

  I watch his eyes and his expression. He betrays his confusion and frustration only barely. r />
  “Your friends are resilient,” he tells us, his voice struggling to keep its serenity. “I didn’t expect they would run to their deaths so readily. Still, we are well prepared.” He watches his feed intently, then barks “San!” A third blast shake us, feeling much closer. I’m surprised the ceiling doesn’t come down on us all.

  “You were right about multiple bombs,” Paul whispers to me.

  I keep watching Hatsumi process what he’s being fed from the surface. His eyes narrow, his jaw clenches. I can imagine what he’s been hearing and seeing:

  At the same moment as the Stilsons’ theatrical entrance, the perimeter of the colony was suddenly swarming with ETE. Hatsumi detonated a device in their midst, the blasts and EMP radii likely calculated for maximum defensive coverage (I expect he would have waited to catch the largest number of his enemies in the lethal range). But even before the dust storms of the first blasts settled, Hatsumi would have seen the colorful sealsuits still coming on, apparently undiminished. And so he detonated his second and third devices.

  He will still be seeing ten colors of sealsuits bearing down on his hill.

  “Uke!” he almost screams the word I recognize as “block” or “receive.” None of the cadre of guards he has in the chamber budges—he must be confident he has more than sufficient numbers of soldiers to intercept the ETE.

  “Is he out of nukes?” Paul quietly wonders. Hatsumi is smiling again as he must be watching his forces engage.

  “Can your gear cut through their signal jamming?” I ask Paul. His helmet nods.

  “Fuzzier since the bangs,” he tells me. “Hopefully it’s making it even more difficult for them. The visual I’m getting from topside looks like videos I’ve seen of anthills: His Shinobi are going up in force to engage us face-to-face. Too bad we aren’t actually there.”

  In a blur, Hatsumi’s daughter leaps off the dais and stops just at the edge of our protective field, her mirrored lenses looking like they could bore right into us. She knows better than to try to challenge a Sphere field directly.

  “One thing we do know is that your toys cannot maintain significant power output for very long,” Hatsumi taunts. “That is why you all carry several. And I will warn you not to use your un-binding fields to dissolve our weapons—this facility has been laced with triggers made of the same alloy, and you would risk detonating our final defense: a device more than capable of replacing the entire colony with a real crater.”

  “You would sacrifice everything rather than have it taken,” I return, making sure my statement doesn’t sound remotely like a question.

  “You have your answer,” Hatsumi tells me flatly.

  “You have your answer,” Paul agrees in whisper.

  “My scanning equipment tells me that your Spheres’ output is already beginning to fluctuate,” Hatsumi challenges. “You can maintain your barrier at that strength for another minute at most. Can you concentrate enough to switch to a fresh Sphere without giving us an opening to cut you to pieces?”

  “Won’t have to,” Paul returns with impressive cool. Then he whispers to me: “Cavalry’s here.”

  To “Move the Shade” means to feint an attack to see how your enemy responds.

  To “Hold Down a Shadow” means to make an aggressive move, then keep changing your attacks as your enemy tries to respond, keeping him off balance so that his prepared responses can’t be effectively used.

  The lazy pass that the Lancer made over the colony hill when it dropped me off did more than kick up dust. It dropped a number of “decoy projectors” the ETE had developed to give not only the visual image of a hundred attacking Guardians, but also a convincing energy signature to match. Now that the illusion has instigated Hatsumi to detonate his surface nukes, it’s likely the dust and radiation has made his own defenses functionally blind.

  Confirming this, I don’t hear his anti-aircraft guns and missile launchers engage, but I do start hearing the more familiar sounds of our own missiles slamming his surface positions. That would be Matthew coordinating the Lancer and our ASVs in a rapid sweep and drop, their bays loaded with the actual ETE Guardians. For their part, the ETE had to do this maneuver without the benefit of a trial run (that might have been observed), but I trust that their skills with their tools will suffice in “flying” them out of our aircraft before we pull back to give them air cover.

  Paul taps me on the back with the Rod in his right hand, and I take my cue, dropping to the deck. Zauba’a should be doing the same. This lets Paul and Simon have a clear “sweep” of the chamber, and they give their Spheres one last “pulse” before trading them. They heed Hatsumi’s warning not to risk disintegrating anything, using only blunt pressive force to hit the Shinkyo like a wave, slamming them back off their feet, and giving us time to take the offensive.

  Paul and Simon lash out with their Rods, and I can hear the energy pound the armored Shinobi like something solid. At least two of the gunmen open up with their PDWs, and I see Paul jerk as he gets hit in the left thigh and shoulder, proving the Shinkyo have developed a nano-projectile that can somehow pass through a Sphere field. I choose to ignore the ETE’s feeling about bloodshed and return fire with my pistol, trying to nail what I assume are the most effective gaps in their armor: face, neck, armpit, inner thigh.

  I only manage to take out two of them before a foot slams down on my weapon, knocking it out of my grip and pinning it into the mats. I can see the flash of black kimono, and roll sideways in time to mostly avoid a slash from Sakura’s claws—she manages to tear into the sleeve of my LA uniform. She comes in for another swipe, but her arm gets stopped by the scabbard of the sword they gave me as I get it between us with both hands. I throw a boot at the leg she’s got most of her weight on, and she has to shift to avoid it—that gives me enough room to roll out away from her and draw the blade as I get up.

  A well-aimed torpedo from Zauba’a distracts her, buying me another second. But I can feel another Shinobi charging me from behind, and I have to spin into him, combining my cut with my parry. He’s good enough to take most of my blade on his own, but I pivot and angle enough to make sure my tip is set just far enough through his guard to drive it into his throat as my cut turns into a thrust in the same action. While he’s choking on blood, I hack his sword-arm. Then I have to keep my spin going to receive another attacker.

  This one loses a few fingers to my cutting parry, opening him up enough for me to get in a nice, strong angular cut, but I don’t get enough warning to pick my targets so I have to go for whatever’s in my way. Hatsumi’s smiths do good work: my “nano-forged” blade cleaves armor enough to put the sword through the Shinobi’s clavicle and down into his torso, deep enough to open his aorta. His blood hits me in the face.

  I “test” my new sword on a third Shinobi, snapping it down hard into the more vulnerable back of his blade, snapping his sword and letting the “bounce” of the impact set me up and quickly down to split his head open. But before I can strike, he flies back away from me, and I glance sideways to see Paul with his Rod on him, hoping to minimize the slaughter. Then Sakura swats Paul in the face, sending him reeling with his silver mask almost knocked off, blood flowing from his jaw line. She follows with a solid kick that sends him down, his Rod flying from his grip.

  Simon and Zauba’a have been “managing” the gauntlet of guards nearest the entrance. Simon has converted two of his Rods into batons and is showing off by trying to strike in multiple directions at once. Zauba’a is at his back, spinning into any Shinobi that gets close enough with her heavy knives. (Simon, for his part, doesn’t seem as bothered by the bloodshed as Paul.)

  I turn on Sakura, dropping my sword down to my side, giving her full opening. She sets herself to charge me, her claws dancing. Then I hear Zauba’a bark out a challenge, and Sakura calmly ducks as a torpedo flies at her head.

  “Useless…” Sakura growls at her through her mask, but I see Zauba’a’s eyes grin above her own mask. Her eyes look past Saku
ra, and Sakura turns in time to see her father topple over limply with the torpedo sunk through his left eye and out the back of his skull.

  Sakura jerks her sword out of its scabbard, and looks like she doesn’t know who to go for first. Zauba’a tries to make the decision for her by advancing, a “borrowed” Shinkyo sword in each hand.

  “Enough!” I hear Paul bellow, and Sakura flies sideways like she’s been hit by an invisible bus. The energy wave knocks her and the handful of Shinobi still in the fight through the panel walls. Zauba’a freezes in her tracks, glaring at the now-unconscious Sakura, and then shoots Paul a look that makes me fear for his head.

  I get over to Hatsumi’s body, and search him for any kind of control mechanisms I can find. If he had any kind of communication system, it must all be implanted. His last breaths are sputtering out of him. I feel for his pulse.

  “He knew he wasn’t walking out of here,” Simon assesses. I nod gravely. Under his black robes are all white ones—the color of death; the color one wears to funerals, or to one’s own ritual suicide.

  “His heart is stopping,” I announce. “If he does have a final device, he’d want more than one way to set it off. His own death might suffice. We know he’s got implants—if it’s triggered by his vital signs to go with him, we’ve got seconds.”

  “He’d sacrifice his own daughter?” Paul is having trouble believing.

  “She is a cripple,” Zauba’a tells him coldy. “Disposable.”

  “Or not,” Simon calls our attention to the fact that Sakura isn’t where she fell. She and all of her surviving Shinobi have made an effective escape.

  “We need to find his last bomb now, or we need a fast exit,” I remind them, but Paul is already signaling for help. I see blood starting to spot Hatsumi’s white robes, and realize it isn’t his. When I stand up, blood is dripping at my feet. The gashes in the sleeves of my LA uniform tell me I’ve probably got fairly significant cuts to both arms, and I’m starting to shake because of it. There’s also a slice through my jacket just below my web belt over my right hip, and my pistol rig has been cleaved through. So much for my skill as a swordsman…

  The ETE take all of three seconds to coordinate a response that I expect was a much harder decision than it appeared. Paul and Simon took hold of Zauba’a and me, and I got to experience what it’s like for an ETE to move through solid matter as they took us the shortest route out of the colony. I had a fraction of a second to decide to drop my “gift” before getting dragged through concrete and rock—it flashed into my shock-addled brain that the trigger for the threatened last-strike device might be built into it, the bomb set off by me taking the blade out of the colony. Even cut up and feeling old and stupid for it, I still found it hard to let go of the weapon.

  The ETE were already sending the majority of their Guardian force back out of estimated harm’s way, each Station team leaving only one member who came specially equipped to detect and neutralize nuclear devices.

  The surface was still masked in a confusing haze of smoke and dust when we came up out of the ground and went flying into the air. Still, I could see disorganized groups of Shinobi running west for slopes of the Dragon’s Tail. Most of them had been at least partially stripped of their armor and weapons by their encounters with the Guardians, but a few of them seemed to be clutching precious prizes as they ran.

  I blame the combination of blood loss, the shock of the “phasing” through dozens of meters of rock (which felt like being pelted with electric hail), and the likelihood that Paul (in his zeal to get me clear) forgot I wasn’t wearing a mask for passing out.

  “That’s it, Colonel…” I vaguely recognize Rios’ voice. I feel hands easing me down, other hands pressing a mask over my face. The first face (or mask) I make out is Zauba’a’s, as she kneels over me, wrapping my mangled arms in pressure tape, not bothering to take off my uniform jacket first—it must be bad enough that it has to wait for a surgical unit.

  I realize I’m in the open bay of an ASV troop module. But instead of squads of bulky HA armor, I’m surrounded by a rainbow of ETE suits. I can only assume the blue suit closest by my side is either Paul or Simon, since I’m still too bleary to read their name tags. But then I realize that some of the ETE are in worse shape than I am: Several have mangled hands, fingers gone. One is missing a leg at the knee. Two are missing arms. I remember Shinkyo running away carrying prizes.

  Several have tools missing from their belts.

  “We need to get back to Station!” I hear someone demand. I lift my head enough to see a stretcher coming in. The green suit on it is being tended by two ETE who look like they’re trying to hold his body together at the waist.

  “Go…” I order like I’m still in command of anything.

  I numbly assume I’d have noticed another nuclear explosion.