Whichever it was, one man with a set of pincers against the full power-suited man-golem that was Malady wasn’t anything for him to worry about, so he turned back to check the perimeter.
The gates had closed behind them, and there were no prisoners flanking them, but when he turned back, he saw that the shuttle had stopped because another of the working convicts stood solidly in front of it.
“Commander, do you want me to disengage from this one and…” Malady said, still looming over the pincer-wielding prisoner.
“No, I got it,” Solomon said. With a short hop and a larger bound, he jumped over the shuttle-rover and landed with a thump on the far side, standing up slowly in front of the prisoner.
Who looked just like the others, in their gray and brown encounter suits, several years out of date, and the ridiculously large, bubble helmet. This one didn’t have a set of pincers and wasn’t doing anything but standing there.
Solomon flicked on his external microphone and prayed that all the prisoners’ encounter suits were wired to pick up external noise. They had to be, surely. Since when would the Confederacy pay to install expensive suit-to-suit communicator channels for a bunch of exiles?
“Stand down,” he said, his voice sounding oddly muted in the misty, heavy atmosphere. Solomon released and gripped his Jackhammer across his chest as he made it obvious that he meant business.
The figure didn’t move at first, but very slowly raised one hand to point its bulbous glove straight into one of the porthole windows. Solomon caught a flash of the man’s face behind the bubble helmet. He was old, dark-skinned, and with eyes as dead as a fish.
“I said, stand down!” Solomon took a step forward, his Jackhammer coming up to point at the man’s chest in one smooth move.
The man continued to point over Solomon’s shoulder, before slowly moving his focus to his aggressor. Solomon saw the man’s dark eyes clearly, and for the first time, in his life it felt like he was staring into the abyss. This man held no expression or spark of hope or life or humanity at all. How long has he been up here to get like that?
“Can you hear me?” Solomon shouted louder this time.
The convict held Solomon’s gaze without a flicker of fear or even anger, before slowly lowering his hand and stepping out of the way.
“What the hell was that all about?” It was Kol, speaking over their suit-to-suit channels. Solomon figured that he must have been watching from inside the shuttle-rover.
“I have no idea. Maybe some crazy guy.” Solomon shook his head, before jumping lightly out of the way as the shuttle-rover rolled forward.
But then again… “Kol, did you see which window he was pointing into?” he asked as he watched the rover roll through the opening chain-link gates and move up the ramp to a hangar bay inside the prison facility itself.
“Yes, Commander, straight at our ambassador. Which is weird, because the porthole is behind her. The man could only see the back of her head, surely,” Kol said. “Maybe he recognized her robes?”
The prisoners don’t get the newsfeeds out here, I shouldn’t think… Solomon thought. How would that man know just who the ambassador was? If he did, that is… “Probably just a lucky guess, and he was just randomly pointing at anyone he didn’t like the look of…” Solomon figured, although the entire event had spooked him, he wasn’t too proud to admit.
But maybe I’ll go ask a few questions… Solomon looked around as Malady bounded past him into the hangar, but of the strange, older pointing convict, there was no sign at all.
Hey, where is he? Solomon was confused, before the flashing lights over the hangar alerted him to the fact that the door was hissing closed, and he had better get in if he didn’t want to join the convicts. Solomon turned and bounded towards the facility as the chain-link gates and the hangar doors auto-shut and locked behind him.
“Here we have the hangar and deployment halls.” Warden Harj took them on a brief tour of the prison facility when they had finally pressurized the hangar and were able to step into the building without the use of helmets.
Not that Solomon and the rest of Gold Squad had taken theirs off, though. They remained fully suited and would remain so until they were allowed to stand down.
“And next we have general population.” Harj swiped his identity card through the door locks.
Another thing that could be easily stolen at the right time by the wrong person, Solomon thought grimly.
“General population!?” Solomon said out loud from where he stood at the ambassador’s side. He was alarmed. Was the warden really going to take one of the highest-ranking officials in the Confederacy into the general hustle and treachery of the convicts here on Titan?
“Oh, don’t worry, Commander Cready. They’re all on lockdown, as I say. No criminals beyond trusted volunteers allowed out of their rooms,” the warden said as a klaxon went off somewhere deep inside the building, and the audible thump as the doors released open.
Revealing on the other side a hellish, austere world of off-white painted walls, broken by the rows of barred rooms.
“Gerrayh!”
“Get out of here!”
“We don’t want’cha!”
They were met by the shouts and screams of the prisoners as the warden ignored them, leading them across the bottom hallway.
“You see, all entirely safe. Locked into their cells, with no hope of getting out…” the warden stated proudly, but Solomon didn’t like it. It looked like Ultor felt much the same way, but for different reasons, as it turned out.
“These people are not animals, Warden!” the Martian Councilor stated loudly, raising a fist in the air as he strode after us. “Friends! I am Father Ultor, and I have come to hear your confessions!” he roared.
A true demagogue, Solomon thought, easing his hands on the Jackhammer as he turned around to keep an eye all around them. The convicts were everywhere, above and beside them, peering and jeering down from their cells. If they were to break out right now, there would be nothing I could do to save the ambassador…
Although it seemed that breaking out was the very last thing on any of the prisoners of Titan’s mind, as most of them started to whisper and gasp, before starting to murmur, then to chant…
“Ultor. Ultor. Ultor…ULTOR!”
“Just who the hell is this guy?” Solomon murmured, looking at the way Ultor beamed and strode back and forth, now with two fists in the air instead of just the one.
“No idea, Commander…” Karamov said, and Wen grunted a similar monosyllabic dismissal.
“The First Martians.” It was the Ambassador who responded to him, and Solomon realized that he had left his external suit microphone on! Dammit! Not such a great start for a diplomatic mission. But at least the ambassador had information.
“Father Ultor is their spokesperson, with a following largely across the poorer elements of Martian colonies. They have an almost religious belief that they are the chosen of Mars,” the ambassador said under her breath.
“I can see why you weren’t too pleased to see him with the imprimatur then…” Solomon whispered, knowing that the din from the chanting prisoners would at least mask his derision. “But wait…not all of these prisoners can be Martians, can they?”
There was an awful lot of chanting going on around and above him, Cready thought. But not all. At least half of the prisoners were silent, or else were jeering and cheering for no other reason than to cause a scene for their warden, it seemed.
“Mars has been very active in its independence efforts,” the ambassador said lightly, a moment before the first object pinged off Malady’s suit.
Oh, come on! Solomon thought, as it was followed by an enamel cup, bouncing along the floor, and then a plastic fork. “Your followers are getting a bit excitable, Father…” Solomon called out loudly, although none of the thrown objects appeared to be falling anywhere near him and the Martian group, he saw.
“They merely wish to express their disapproval of the Confederacy, I am sur
e…” The father laughed a loud, echoing roar as this time another cup, followed by a tube of toothpaste, hit the floor at Ambassador Ochrie’s feet.
Well, I know this doesn’t exactly count as danger, but still… Solomon had enough. “Right, that’s it. Warden Harj? Where’s our exit, please? I’m taking the ambassador out of here,” he said loudly, for the warden to quickly usher them towards the gate at the rear of the room, followed by the cheers, jeers, and catcalls of the prisoners behind them.
“Patience, brothers and sisters!” Ultor boomed at his flock as he followed the rest of the delegation. “The day is soon coming when you will all be free, as citizens of Mars!” He raised a fist to a rousing cheer, and then the door clanged in front of him and the ambassadorial delegation moved on.
7
Ice Mining
“You see? Totally, absolutely unacceptable!” Father Ultor, the ‘pastor’ and leading figure of the Chosen of Mars, berated the ambassador as the delegates continued their hasty ‘tour’ of the Titan prison facility, under the somewhat nervous eyes of Warden Harj.
In any other circumstance, Solomon would probably be inclined to agree with the father—were it not for his belligerence. Titan wasn’t a ‘nice’ place. They viewed the canteen kitchens, where food was dispensed by other prisoners through a hole in the wall, and prisoners were fed in shifts of fifty at a time, with no talking allowed. Next came the ‘recreation facilities,’ which was essentially a gymnasium with static exercise machines to help the prisoners maintain their bone density in the lighter gravity and extreme conditions.
“And what of radiation!?” Ultor demanded of Harj. “How many of my confederates are going to develop some wasting disease by the time they are forty?”
“We dose the prisoners rations with iodine and B-vitamins, according to Confederacy-approved guidelines…” Warden Harj was growing less and less patient with the upsetting priest, and Solomon saw him now answer in a high-minded and officious air.
Which didn’t go down well.
“Oh! The Confederacy-approved guidelines which dictate half of what the average Martian needs in order to maintain a healthy immune system?” Ultor questioned. Underneath his bravado and bluster, Solomon saw that there was actually a very sharp mind as he reeled off facts and figures to the put-upon warden.
“These men and women are prisoners, uh, Father,” the warden stated—unwisely, in Solomon’s opinion. He had met people like that when working in New Kowloon. Never argue. They don’t like it when you argue with them…
“They are enemy combatants at best!” Ultor stated as they marched down a drafty, freezing corridor to their next site. “And we all know what the Universal Convention of War states…”
There was a mumbled cough from Imprimatur Valance beside him, and Solomon noticed that the father immediately shut up. So, the imprimatur is still the one who calls the shots in your relationship, is she? That might be a useful piece of information for later, Solomon considered.
“Are you suggesting that Mars is currently at war with Earth, Father Ultor?” the ambassador asked lightly. “Because if that is the case, then I am sure that I can leave the negotiations up to the generals of the Marine Corps instead.” She gave the man a brittle smile. Her meaning was obvious: negotiate or fight.
“No, well…not at war of course…” Father Ultor grumbled into his mustache.
“Really, Ambassador,” Imprimatur Valance finally broke into the conversation. “How can Mars be at war with anyone, when everyone knows that Mars does not even have any of its own military forces? We all rely on the Marine Corps for our protection.”
Not what I saw on Hellas Chasma. Solomon gritted his teeth. Those Martian separatists had weapons—Marine weapons—and knew how to use them. Which meant training. Someone was training them. Is it you, Imprimatur? He studied the woman with the black hair, but she remained inscrutable to his observations.
“And you are suggesting that Mars, and by extension all of the rest of the colonies, require their own defense forces?” the ambassador asked levelly.
“We are all prey to raiders and mercenaries, Your Excellency… Sometimes, the Marine Corps, even these brave boys and girls of the Rapid Response Fleet—” The imprimatur turned to nod at Solomon and the Outcasts. “—even they can often arrive too late when they are responding to a colonial call rather than an Earth one.”
That touched a nerve. Solomon saw the ambassador stop in her tracks. “Are you suggesting that the Marine Corps is willing to sacrifice colonial security, Imprimatur Valance?”
“They are willing to charge us with batons and shock-sticks whenever we raise our head out of the dirt!” Father Ultor muttered darkly.
“I wouldn’t dream of saying so,” Valance said casually. It was kind of fascinating, Solomon thought, watching these two women go head-to-head in this way. Both were clearly fiercely intelligent, and very good at what they did. And they knew it.
“Nevertheless, there really is no need to waste time. We all know why we have been asked here: a full pardon and a release of colonial prisoners in return for some goodwill.”
“A cessation of hostilities by colonial seditionists,” the ambassador said firmly, to which imprimatur nodded. Father Ultor didn’t, Solomon noted. This was the game, wasn’t it? Everyone knew that the Mars, Proxima, and asteroid governors must have some say over their ‘terrorist’ factions. But no one was willing to point the finger in case they, as Solomon had heard Ambassador Ochrie herself say, ‘be the person who started humanity’s first interstellar war.’
“I never said anything about a full pardon, however,” the ambassador added, almost as an afterthought.
“What?” The imprimatur finally took the bait and lost her temper. “I beg your pardon, Ambassador?”
The delegation had come to the end of the rooms after viewing the Orwellian control room—a tower with armed guards on permanent patrol, protecting a room wallpapered in screens, showing every possible angle of the facility and the nearby ice fields—and Warden Harj seemed impatient to hurry them along.
“I’ll be taking you out to one of our ice mine facilities, where the Proxima delegation are currently inspecting…” he spoke a little too loudly, as if he hoped to break the looming argument between the imprimatur and the ambassador.
“None of the prisoners released from Titan will receive pardons or clean records.” The ambassador ignored Harj. “I thought you were already aware of this, Imprimatur? Their citizen identity cards will record that their sentences have been served, but they will not vanish.”
“You are dooming fifty-six Martian nationals to a life of factory work with records like that, and we all know that Earth operates a no-tolerance policy to criminal convictions. Those men and women will never be able to visit their relatives who still live on Earth, and they will be unlikely to ever earn enough money to allow their children to, either…” the imprimatur spat.
“Outrageous…” Ultor growled.
“Necessary,” the ambassador countered. Harj was busy trying to use the door communicator to call up another rover, and the delegates were organically, primally forming two sides of a circle—with the Martians and their guards on one side, and the Earth Confederacy Ambassador, her personal assistant, and the Outcast Marines on the other.
This could turn nasty, Solomon thought, eyeing his opposite guards. Are they the sort to fire? To start that interstellar war if the imprimatur tells them to?
Not the Martian Imprimatur, Solomon thought. But they might do for Ultor. He was the firebrand. He was the figurehead that the seditionists must look up to, with the imprimatur just pulling the strings.
“Earth cannot afford to have violent offenders—those ideologically opposed to the Confederacy—with clean records, applying for jobs in our own space lanes, or as border Marines, customs officials, or occupying places of authority. That would be insane!” The ambassador laughed, making it sound as though the Martians were just being childish.
“What wo
uld happen if, five years from now, one of those good and loyal Martians takes a job on a Lunar transporter and decides to crash it into New York Island?” she scoffed.
It’s a good point, Solomon thought.
“Imprimatur, Father, you are both intelligent people, you realize that there always have to be checks and balances. You will get your wayward citizens back—on the provision that they are never able to have anything to do with Earth ever again. That is my offer,” the ambassador stated and turned to where Harj had finally succeeded in getting through to someone at the next facility.
“What do you mean something’s gone wrong over there!?” Harj had tried to whisper the words into the wall communicator, but the lull in the conversation and the empty, drafty metal hanger that they stood in meant that everyone heard it perfectly.
“There’s been an explosion at the ice mine. The Proximians are trapped…” Solomon looked at Warden Harj’s ashen face. His mustache and beard quivered. The tough prison guard looked about ready to faint. This was clearly something that the warden had never expected to happen on his watch.
“Then we go rescue them,” Ambassador Ochrie said without hesitation. “I have the Outcast Marines here at my disposal. With their help and your wardens, we can get them out, come on…” She was already moving towards one of the parked rovers.
“But, Ambassador…” Solomon felt himself impelled to say. I am supposed to be her security consultant, after all. “It’s going to be dangerous out there. We should get you back to your ship first…”
The ambassador spun on her heel. “Not going to happen, Commander Cready. Those Proximians are technically the guests of the Confederacy, and those prisoners are Confederate citizens…”
“Martian comrades, more like!” Father Ultor muttered angrily.
“Perhaps, Father,” the ambassador conceded. “But while they’re still on Titan, they’re a Confederate responsibility. Which, in this room, and on this moon, would mean me. Now load up, soldier!” She was already stalking to the doors of the rover as Solomon spared a shrug with Warden Harj. There was clearly no arguing with the woman. Harj activated the rover controls, and the ambassador and her personal assistants stepped in.
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