The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (15 page)

I’m thankful I don’t suffer from claustrophobia—at
times, close spaces are actually comforting for me, though I do
have it better than most: I have my private “Deluxe Senior
Officers’ Accommodations”, identical to Matthew’s, Lisa’s, Rick’s,
Halley’s, Kastl’s and Metzger’s (Cal’s remains unoccupied but
untouched, waiting for his return as I don’t have the heart to
order it cleared out). Eight-by-eight, it’s almost
submarine-efficient. I even have my own private bathroom: a
two-by-two-foot recycling shower stall with a sink niche and a
retracting toilet under it.

The junior officers, NCOs, pilots and department
heads have to share a space two feet narrower than this, bunking in
twos (and very few rate their own toilet facilities). The rest of
the military personnel share squad-to-platoon-sized barracks, with
the enlisted in separate units from the civilian contractors. Some
of the more ambitious (or more driven) have simply set up “camp” at
their duty stations—Morales has been sleeping in one of the downed
ASVs for the past three months, this despite the round-the-clock
work shifts keeping things noisy down in the bays.

It’s amazing I haven’t had to discipline anyone for
fighting yet, but then the general mood is more a combination of
the team spirit of trying to keep each other alive and a sort of
vague survivor’s guilt. I haven’t even heard of any flare-ups
between the ex-Ecos and the soldiers that spilled each other’s
blood in the years of stupidity before the bombs made us all
bedfellows.

It helps that there’s been a lot of work to do
getting the base and its assets back into some kind of operational
order, and Tru’s been actively repaying my including her by stoking
the goodwill down in the refugee bays.

Still, Doc Halley gives me regular reports on the
meds she’s been handing out (or rationing out). Despite the hope
and the team spirit, there is still the tenacious fear that we may
be far more alone than just being inadvertently left behind.

Other than a few random shocks (new atmosphere, new
plant life, a ghost ship arriving out of nowhere), most of our time
is spent in the scheduled grind of the daily routine: wake, PT,
morning Spin, rationed shower (or a trip to Doc Ryder’s “bath
house”—converted out of an empty storage bay near Water
Recycling—for a Japanese-style sponge-off and hot soak), choking
down breakfast (at least we still have plenty of coffee, no matter
the quality), then on shift until evening Spin, dinner and a few
hours leisure (quite a few of us just keep working, or volunteer to
assist with other projects) before it’s back in the rack.

But just keeping busy isn’t enough. The ones that do
the best (judged by Halley’s reports and the pharmacy logs) are the
ones who can get through each day by finding some kind of peace or
satisfaction in the Zen aesthetic of sparseness and discipline, the
joy in the minimal. We have air, food (or at least something to
keep our bellies full), water, heat, a place to sleep, and work to
do. It’s almost a monastic life, despite the stories I increasingly
hear of “coupling”, even in the officers’ ranks, because life will
find a way (and I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to bother
deflecting Tru’s advances).

Still, even the Noble Path leads
somewhere
—we
appear to be only waiting for something that, day by day, seems
less likely to arrive.

Some of us are not fairing as well as others.

“It’s not a prison,” Matthew criticizes the popular
metaphor over what passes for breakfast in the Officers’ Mess (now
a dining hall again, no longer our makeshift briefing room), “it’s
more like an
oubliette
. A deep dark dungeon below the
dungeon, a hole you get locked up in so that the ones that put you
there can simply forget you.”

He’s looking grizzled and sleep-deprived. (Or is that
sleep-overloaded? He spends much of his days shut up in his
quarters.) The pained grief has faded—the frustration of having
survived an apocalypse with an aged, battered, wasted body that
doesn’t want to carry him anymore without significant pain—but he’s
sunk into the fatalism of depression.

I miss the wise-ass who existed to be a thorn in the
side of his commanders, who challenged the ugly politics with
relish, who reveled in never following orders without question. He
insists he came to Mars because of his ongoing loyalty to me, but I
think it was at least in part because he thought what was happening
here was as corrupt as I did. But now that corporate-driven war is
fifty years dead, however it ended. Maybe not having a “good” fight
anymore has cost him his identity. The only apparent authority left
on this world is me, and he knows what I am.

Anton slides up a tray of ration oatmeal and dried
fruit, and today he looks almost as beaten as Matthew.

“I may need to ask you for something big, Colonel,”
he starts even before he’s settled, and I can feel his weary
frustration. “I’ve officially blown every component I could safely
scavenge trying to punch a signal through the static shield. All
we’ve got left are the comm systems in the ASVs.”

“No luck with the Lancer?”

“Worse, I think,” he sighs out, then looks like he’s
said the wrong thing and wants to take it back. He looks around the
room, but no one else seems to be listening in—the handful of
junior officers in here with us are all looking vaguely dazed over
their meals. “I didn’t want to say anything until I know for sure,
but remember that idea about taking the Lancer above the static net
and broadcasting out? Now, I can’t really tell until I’ve gotten
all the systems unlocked and online, but it looks like the
transmitter may have been pulled.”

“Pulled?” I jump on it before Matthew can.

“Like I said, I can’t be sure, but it looks like
someone very deliberately and very carefully removed the
transmitter boards, and there’s no sign of them anywhere.”

“Somebody didn’t want anyone else using the ship to
call out,” Matthew concludes like it doesn’t matter.

“Could it have been cannibalized for some other
project by the original owners?” I ask. Anton shrugs.

“Looks too neat to be an emergency MacGyver move,” he
offers. “I’m hoping I can tell you more when we get access.”

I gel that for a moment. Matthew is looking
grimmer.

“Could we boost one of the ASV transmitters enough to
be heard, assuming we could fly it up above the atmosphere
net?”

“It would make noise,” Anton allows. “But even if we
wait until conjunction, I’m not sure it would stand out enough
against the background of what the net is putting out. Same if we
flew out of the valley, up to Datum level: I don’t think we could
get far enough from the net’s noise to be heard, not with what gear
we have left.”

“What if we shut down the net?” Matthew considers
flatly. “Knock out those projectors, then seal up in here while the
atmosphere starts bleeding out. No static, we might get heard. Or
at least someone might take notice if the net got broken, come take
a look.”

“And if Doctor Halley’s right, and there are
survivors living out on the surface who need that air?” Anton
protests, trying to suppress his shock.

“Then we shut it down, make noise, and turn it back
on again,” Matthew returns, not making eye contact. “Assuming you
can figure out how it works.”

He gets up from the table and leaves without another
word. Anton gives me a pained look.

“Let’s focus on getting the ASVs up,” I offer. “Make
priority out of getting a close look at whatever is generating the
net, maybe visit one of the ETE stations—they’re up higher, and
might have transmitters in better condition.”

“Assuming the stations aren’t occupied,” he
semi-jokes.

“If they are, then I expect we’ll be making quite a
bit of noise.”

I check in with Morales again—I think my daily visits
only increase her stress—before I head back up to the Command
Deck.

The routine grinds the worst here—or maybe a close
second to Air Command, a painfully useless station as we currently
have nothing that flies. Now that the systems we’ve got left are
running as best they can, all we can do is watch, listen and wait.
And so far the only brief moment of excitement was the arrival of
the Lancer. Otherwise, the planet is dead quiet. At least the other
crews have actual work to do, no matter how much of a struggle it
is.

Kastl, Grant and Shaloub have the first duty shift in
Ops today, with Metzger, Weiss and Li over in AirCom. They put on a
good show of keeping their eyes on their screens, at least for my
benefit. Otherwise, all there is to do is stare out the thick plexi
pillbox-style ports at the slow clean-up and reconstruction going
on outside, and beyond that, just dust blowing over empty
rust-colored desert in all directions.

By ten, Lisa comes up, thoughtfully bringing us a
hotpot of what passes for coffee.

“All quiet on the Western Front?” she tries making
conversation. She manages to come and go with a gentle
civility—more than duty requires of her—treating me like some
casual old friend or distant relation. I can only imagine what it
took for her to bury whatever pain I’d so effectively caused her.
Still, I notice she avoids looking at Tru whenever she joins us for
a conference or “drops by to chat”.

“Just enjoying the scenery,” I tell her dully.

Tired of reviewing status reports of a thousand minor
operational details that barely change (and the most significant
change is the steady and depressing decline of palatable
foodstuffs), my eyes have been drawn outside, though now barely
focused on what I’m ostensibly “supervising” through the bunker
ports: Out past where Carver has her team coming off another
battery drill, their red Heavy Armor suits making them look like
upright ants running across the rusty terrain. Out beyond the
perimeter battery line, now partially restored to surround two
sides of the roughly comma-shaped bunker complex like a medieval
battlement. Out into the gently rolling plain of mostly-monochrome
rock and gravel. Out there, I numbly watch one of the construction
units working monotonously on restoring the pressurized tubeway out
to Reactor Two, where Ryder’s got her greenhouse dome with her
garden—or crop—of now-giant Martian “grass”. A dome of green in an
endless sea of red-ochre sand and rock.

But then my eyes catch just a touch of
new
color: a fleck of sapphire blue out in the red, a hundred meters or
so outside the main perimeter gate, and well away from any of the
work crews. It strikes me that it wasn’t there just moments
before—and I’ve been staring out this window all morning.

“What…” I start, pointing Lisa’s eyes where I’m
looking. The blue fleck moves just a bit, turns, and then I realize
I’m looking at a man.

“Lieutenant Carver!” I shout into the link. “One
hundred meters due west, straight out through the Gate! Give me
eyes…” Then I turn to Kastl, Grant and Shaloub, who’ve jerked to
alertness like someone fired a gun: “Who’s out there?”

Kastl is already zooming in on the grid, but the only
icons on the screens are the codes for Carver’s HA’s, turning and
fanning toward the gate.

“No tag,” Kastl confirms, his voice edgy. “It’s
not
one of us.”

The blue shape is just standing still, out on the
plain, as Carver’s armor moves to surround it. I key up an image
from her armor feed.

“What the hell is it?” I hear Matthew’s voice on the
link.

“My luck,” Carver grouses to no one in particular,
her voice shaky. “We’ve got him, Colonel—it’s… It’s human. Not one
of ours. He’s… He’s just standing there, sir.”

“Is he armed?” I ask, looking the figure over on the
feed as Shaloub gives me an enhanced zoom. It’s dressed in some
kind of bright blue jumpsuit, possibly a light pressure suit, with
boots and gloves and something that looks like a snug-fitting
helmet or facemask and hood. The mask and helmet are shining
silver, like polished chrome.

“Not that I can see,” Carver answers. “Well,
maybe…”

Zooming in closer, there are shiny objects arranged
on its belt, a series of plain short metal rods and softball-sized
spheres, all looking chrome-plated like the helmet.

“Grenades?” Lisa wonders, pointing to the
spheres.

As if in answer, the blue figure’s gloved hands raise
slowly, cautiously, but with grace and surety. Two-dozen weapons
lock—laser dots dance like red fireflies all over the blue suit and
silver mask. The hands show open palms, the body-language is
passive.

“I’m looking at some kind of insignia,” I hear
Sergeant Horst on the link. I switch to his armor camera—he’s off
to the figure’s left side, and there’s a view of a round colorful
patch on the shoulder.

“That’s an ETE logo,” I hear Matthew growl—he’s
watching this from his quarters. “Fucking shit… I’ll be right
up…”

“Orders, Colonel?” Carver demands, her voice
shaky.

“Hold…”

I don’t get to finish. The blue suit’s hands reach
down smoothly for the buckle of the belt. A weapon fires—readouts
tell me it’s Corporal Lewis’ ICW—and I can see the AP round cut
clean through the blue suit center-of-mass, right through the
heart. Blood sprays out the back as the shell exits, and the figure
staggers backwards, boots tripping over rock in a low gravity
stagger. Pivoting. Going down onto hands and knees.

“Hold fire!” I’m shouting. “
Hold fire!
” Carver
already has her hand up to enforce the order.

But then another hand goes up—this time from the blue
suit. Still kneeling in the dirt and rock, one hand goes up.
Signaling for us to hold.

“What…” Lisa starts.

The figure gets up. Slowly. With difficulty. But it
stands. Turns back to face Carver (and very likely Lewis, who is
standing next to Carver). Gets both hands up and struggles to
resume its original non-threatening posture.