The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (5 page)

“You think we could have been out more than a year?”
I ask before anyone else can.

“It…” She looks like she isn’t sure what to say, like
she’s reluctant to tell a patient that he’s terminal. “It looks
like MAI adjusted the chemical dosing somewhere along the line. But
MAI also lost—or erased—the system logs along with every other
record of what happened since we went under. I haven’t had the
energy yet to get a team into the system and take a look at the
drug and nutrient tanks—that would tell us how much juice we used,
which could tell us approximately how long we’ve been out.”

“What about physical exams you’ve done? Can they give
us any indication of time down?”

She looks tired. “The tissue scans are
automatic—protocol as soon as the system brings you out. Beyond
that, I’ve only been able to do some basic workups—I’ve never had
to do a post-sleep exam on myself, much less on several hundred
others while I’m still in Stage Two rehab. Like I said: we need
time to look at everybody thoroughly. But there is unusually high
demineralization in the bones I’ve been scanning, even though
Hiber-Sleep is supposed to slow that way down.”

Nobody says anything for awhile. I watch bodies move
in their seats, shifting, stretching—carefully, like they’re not
sure if they can trust their bones not to spontaneously break.
Matthew looks like he’s going to make another joke about how old he
feels, but keeps it to himself.

“Back to the good news,” Staley tries. “Internal
pressure is good. No apparent atmosphere leaks in any of the
sections I’ve managed to scan, but we do need to start doing a
room-by-room survey because some of the individual section sensors
are down. It’s warm, so environment controls are working. And we’ve
got food—rations and supplements—to last us at least a year, more
if we want to try using those nano-recyclers the Tranquility Group
gave us. It won’t be tasty, and we won’t get fat, but we’ll have
basic nutrients to get through as long as we can stand eating the
stuff. Water recycling is impacted by the power issue just like the
air systems, but we should be okay if we’re reasonably careful.
”

“Too bad,” Matthew grumbles. “Barring the appearance
of a good steak, the thought of a good hot soak was the only thing
I was looking forward to.”

“We could go Japanese-style,” Ryder encourages. “Set
up a communal tub.”

Matthew smiles at her, but it only shows how much
he’s hurting.

“How long until we can actually move around enough to
do any of the hands-on work?” I push it. “I want that
section-by-section survey done. I need to know just how bad we were
hit.
And
I’d like to know how deep we’re buried.”

“Plus we should run full maintenance on the air and
water systems,” Staley lists, finally sounding weary. “And get the
reactors back online—that should solve the power problem—but that
probably means going outside. And
I
need to properly pick
apart MAI, see if I can get to whatever’s wrong with it, get us
some answers.”

“A few more days,” Ryder allows cautiously. “We need
to try to keep to the rehab protocols. I respect your priorities,
Colonel, but we
are
in rough shape. Still, I agree: We’d all
feel better if we had some answers and could do more than basic
rehab. The not knowing is unbearable for all of us.”

“All right,” I decide. “Can we coordinate with the
other chambers and put together some initial work and survey teams
out of whoever’s recovering best?”

“I’ll talk to Halley and Shenkar, have them put
together lists of who’s good to go soonest,” Ryder seems to
brighten.

“Let’s give ourselves one more day,” I allow, “then
at least get all the seniors together—officers, NCO’s, techs and
supports. We need to wake this place up, make sure it’s running
enough to keep us alive and comfortable, then see what it will take
to get up on the surface and set up a new uplink.”

“You’re the boss, Mikey,” Matthew agrees with lazy
enthusiasm. But then he stays put when Staley and Ryder drag out to
get back to business. “You thinking about Lisa?”

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Ava and I haven’t had
that
kind of relationship for a long long time, Matthew,” I
answer him coolly, not that he isn’t well aware of our history
(both the good and the not so good). “But, yes, I’d like to know
she’s in one piece, and not just because she’s now technically
third in command. I’d like to know Rick’s okay too.
He’s
actually older than you are. ”

“But I’m more fun.”

True.

Day 5:

“Reviewing what we saw and heard before we lost
communications, this is what we can put together about our likely
situation,” Lisa begins her part of the briefing immediately after
we all get settled around the biggest table in the Officer’s
Mess.

We’re all slowly working our way farther and farther
from our beds (and now
two
-thirds of us have been released
from Hiber-Sleep back to our beds). Walking any distance is still a
Herculean endeavor , though today I can actually walk several steps
in a row without hand holds. And our intimate little face-to-face
briefings are growing: Today we’ve added Doctors Halley
and
Shenkar to give us reports from their respective patient loads, and
Captain Kastl from Operations, who’s been working with Anton in
getting into MAI. And, of course, there’s Lisa—Lieutenant Colonel
Ava…

She doesn’t even give us time to get our wind, and
I’m not sure where she’s getting hers. She looks like death—like
the rest of us, zombified versions of our pre-sleep selves—despite
how incredible she still looks at sixty-six (and it’s not just the
cutting edge military-elite health care slowing down the aging
process: I can still see the headstrong smart pretty young woman I
fell for all those decades ago). And I catch myself looking. And
make sure she doesn’t catch me looking. Because we manage to be
friends and work together like professionals but I hurt her way too
badly to have the right to ever think about her that way again.

“We know Ares’ Station was lost—we saw it fall.
Hopefully the crew and any transferring travelers managed to get
off and get to someplace safe. Phobos Dock wasn’t fairing well, and
if they did survive with adequate resources, they’ve probably lost
all means to get anyone down here—they’d be stuck playing the same
waiting game we are.”

Lisa takes a long moment to let Doctor Ryder process
her husband’s possible fate once more. I’m glad I had her do this
part of the briefing. I know I come across as stone-killer robot
cold, especially when I’m angry. Matthew masks his rage with his
bitter humor. Anton is just too young—despite how brilliant and
dedicated he is, he can’t help but sound like a green kid,
especially when he’s talking in front of a big group. And Rick—who
would be my next best choice to deliver technical bad news—still
hasn’t been released from bed rest.

Ryder looks like she really wants to leave the room,
wants to go back to Medical and re-bury herself in her work, stay
distracted until we actually know what happened outside of our
bunker home. But she stays put.

Lisa chews her lip and moves on. “We also know that
the interplanetary shuttles and freighters in orbit were at least
critically damaged. Hopefully, they managed to abandon ships and
get picked up by the craft we sent up their way when the shooting
started. With luck, they sheltered on the surface, somewhere well
away from all the detonations.”

“Which means well away from us,” Doctor Halley
considers why no one’s come back here: this whole region got nuked,
and probably geologically destabilized—we’re in the biggest canyon
on two planets, and it wasn’t that stable before it got pounded
with fission warheads. (As far as we know, there could be a
kilometer of rock over our heads.) If our pilots gathered up
survivors and brought them down to the surface, they’d land far
away from here, and use their remaining fuel for power while they
waited the months it would take for Earthside to send help.

(And that would partially explain the lack of
contact: If everyone left is in survival-mode for the long stretch,
no one has resources to do outreach.)

Lisa has to stop then and catch her breath, and I can
finally hear how weak she probably feels. She only meets my eyes
for a second, enough to remind me I have no right to give a shit
about her anymore as long as she can do her job, and then she gets
rolling again:

“Beyond that, if both Phobos and the orbital dock
were out, then anything that was inbound from Earth wouldn’t be
able to stop and offload. Or refuel. Now I know there are
contingencies worked out for emergencies like this, ways inbound
shuttles can make a low-fuel slingshot and get back to Earth by the
skin of their teeth. But that depends on whether or not the
incoming ships were still maintaining those contingencies, or if
they’d gotten complacent with the regs. Even if they were careful
and hit the return maneuver right on, getting home is still far
from assured.”

“A lot of the corporate supply ships were pushing
it,” Matthew considers grimly, “trying to milk the dollar, flying
loaded past safety specs. I doubt they were still thinking in terms
of ‘What if all the docks aren’t there when we show up?’”

“So where would that put a relief mission?” I ask for
the bottom line, though I’ve been crunching the numbers myself in
my rehab haze.

“Earthside would probably have to put it together
from scratch, new ships and all,” Staley calculates. “I’m sure
they’d make it top priority, but they’d also be expecting the worst
on arrival. Telescopes—and any survivors’ reports—would show them
how bad we got pounded. And they’d know we wouldn’t be able to
support them on this end, so they’d have to put together a mission
that could make it both ways and expect to carry thousands of
evacuees—a lot of them badly injured—on the return trip.”

“I doubt they’d be thinking about evacuating the
wounded,” Halley interrupts. “The return flight is too long to be
an ambulance ride, even with hibernation. They’d try to drop us a
hospital unit, treat the bad cases here. Or set up something in
orbit if they were worried about Discs or nano-contamination on the
surface.”

“And they’d want to use any viable manpower left on
this end to help them respond,” Lisa considers. “They’d want to get
power and fuel processors set up, sync a new space dock, get things
ready for supporting multiple round trips.”

“So they’d have to get to designing and building all
that stuff,” Matthew agrees. “Expecting the worst.”

“Which includes both an unknown risk from
nano-contamination on the surface, and a probable risk of Disc
attack, likely to hit them as soon as they make orbit,” Lisa
assesses, her face going into her hands, her palms covering her
eyes, fighting through rehab-fatigue to stay clear.

“So they’d need a bloody armada,” Halley imagines,
frustrated with the delays she’s imagining to get relief to what
she’s imagining is happening on the surface and in space. Right
now, our own position seems luxurious in comparison.

“They’d just lost potentially tens of thousands of
lives,” I rationalize. “And what killed them is still likely active
and waiting for our next move. I wouldn’t expect them to rush into
a grinder like that. First priority in a disaster: don’t get killed
coming to the rescue. Can’t save anybody if you’re just going to
show up and get slaughtered. Anything they send would have to be
hardened and armed to resist the Discs.”

“They’d need a bloody armada,” Matthew parrots
Halley’s sentiment.

“Months to build it, assuming they make it a
planetary priority, then most of a year to get it here,” Staley
adds it up.

“But wouldn’t they have done something in the mean
time?” Ryder asks. “Sent probes? Tried to establish
communication?”

“Maybe the Discs are taking out anything they send,”
Lisa considers.

“But who’s running the Discs?” Matthew demands,
getting frustrated in his fatigue. “Something this big, you’d think
they’d have shown their hand, given themselves away, let Earth know
who they’re dealing with so they know who to take out. Or maybe
they already killed themselves along with everyone else on the
surface.”

“We don’t know
anything
about the colonies,”
Lisa tries to reassure, but that hope is tinted with accusation:
any survivors are suspect. “A lot of the nukes were going wild. We
didn’t get any confirmation of direct hits before our eyes got
knocked out.”

“But we also haven’t heard from our other two bases,
despite MAI having been linked to their AIs,” he complains. “They
would have come looking for us if they made it. They
didn’t
have operational Hiber-Sleep facilities. And a handful of the
colonies had garrisons of Peacekeepers, or SOF units camped onsite.
Plus, we sent up over a dozen support craft. Even if they were busy
with survivors, some would prioritize returning to base after the
smoke and radiation cleared, if for no other reason than to
scavenge for supplies. We’re assuming it’s been months. Even if
fuel was short, we should have had
some
kind of
contact.”

Lisa is looking like she’s withdrawn into herself,
trying to figure out how to say something.

“What are you thinking, Colonel?” I ask her
officially.

“I’ve been up to Command Ops, up in the Tower,” she
begins, slowly. “You said you didn’t see any sign of activity
except yourself.”

“But I couldn’t exactly see very well,” I allow her.
“You found something?”

She pulls her flashcard out of the thigh pocket of
her uniform and keys up an image on the screen side. MAI
automatically captures the image and projects it larger on the Mess
Hall screens. It’s an enhanced photo of the dusty deck.