Read The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Online

Authors: Michael Rizzo

Tags: #mars, #military, #genetic engineering, #space, #war, #pirates, #heroes, #technology, #survivors, #exploration, #nanotech, #un, #high tech, #croatoan, #colonization, #warriors, #terraforming, #ninjas, #marooned, #shinobi

The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (33 page)

BOOK: The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds
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“Colonel Ram…” A green sealsuit glides over and
settles in front of me. The tag on the breast says “Dodds,” which I
assume is Rhiannon, leader of the “Green Team.” Apparently she
wasn’t among those that had resigned, shocked by the cost of the
conflict they’d entered. “The area appears secured. We are doing
what we can to assist with your wounded, but we lack competence in
first aid. We can assist with moving the injured, containing
prisoners, repairing some of your passive defenses…”

She sounds shaky. Unsure. Uncomfortable.

“Thank you, Guardian,” I tell her, “but we may have
another problem.” I use my flashcard to show her an image of “Ra.”
I can’t read her reaction under her helmet. She appears to consider
the image, then raises a finger tip to my flashcard. I see the
image flicker, and I assume she’s used her technology to download
our video file.

“We have never seen anything like this, or like the
light-absorbing nano-construct that came from the wreckage,” she
tells me, still quite unsettled. “I hope I can assure you, Colonel:
We had no idea. Only rumors.”

“Rumors?” I press her, trying not to sound
accusatory.

“The PK and the Zodanga had withdrawn into their
habitats these last several weeks. But the Nomads had heard things
passed along from the food traders: that the Zodanga had been
bragging that they had acquired some kind of greater weapons
technology, and that PK uniforms had been seen among the pirate
crews. Some of the Nomads had feared that it was you—Earth—that had
promised them an advantage to use against the weaker groups. Your
friend Abbas passionately convinced them otherwise. But this is the
first we’ve seen of anything substantive. We had no reason to
believe it was anything more than posturing, bluffing.”

I shake my head, chew my lip under my mask, feeling
suddenly very stupid for making the very same assumption.

“Both Hatsumi Sakura and Colonel Janeway had hinted
that there was something happening, that there was another
significant power on the planet,” I tell her what she’s probably
already heard. “I thought they were just posturing, too. That’s how
Janeway sounded. But Sakura… She sounded as if she was trying to
reach out, to warn us. Unfortunately, I’ve had little reason to
trust anything they say.” It’s a poor excuse.

“If either had intended candor, they would have told
you more,” Rhiannon tries to reassure me. She honestly seems to
want to be comforting, despite being so obviously at a loss for
reason or understanding surrounded by all this death.

Paul has stopped probing at the wreckage. He’s
levitating, getting altitude for a good look in the direction that
Chang’s nanites blew away to. He begins to glide that way, then
holds himself back. Hangs frozen for while we watch for several
breaths. Then he turns back and goes to help with the wounded. But
he doesn’t put his weapon away.

“What about Paul Stilson?” I change the focus,
worried about someone I do consider a friend, hoping Rhiannon might
be able to tell me how he’s been, how he’s been dealing (or not
dealing), assuming she’ll share. She doesn’t answer me, seems even
more uncomfortable. “He lost his brother,” I remind her needlessly.
“Chang—the ‘light-absorbing nano-construct’—claimed responsibility
for it. For all of it: The Apocalypse and all the violence before
it. And he brought Discs with him to prove it.”

“We must be better than revenge, Colonel,” she tells
me after taking a few strained breaths in her expressionless mask.
“We
must
be.”

“He doesn’t need things to be any more difficult for
him,” I suggest, considering what his Council—his own father—might
have to say about his actions (especially since his own fellow
Guardians seem to be so uncomfortable with what he’s become).

“He will make his choices, Colonel,” she tells me
heavily. “I expect we all will.”

I nod my understanding.

“Colonel Ram!” Thomas interrupts us. She’s climbing
the ridge towards us, with three more of the strange handcrafted
armor suits trailing her at a respectful distance. “Someone you
should meet, sir…”

The lead suit takes his PDW and his sword and lays
them to either side of himself as he kneels on one knee, bowing his
helmet. His companions follow suit.

“We come to you in friendship and brotherhood,” a
voice almost sings, with a deep, mature tone that I recognize from
the voice that came over our channels. “You
are
who they
say. You are the tales and the legends. We are honored to give you
our swords and our guns.”

“I’m very grateful for your assistance,” I return,
hopefully not after staring at them dumbfounded for too many
seconds. “And no one should kneel to me. Certainly not a friend.” I
step forward, offer my hand. The lead suit looks up—I see his eyes
smile behind his goggles—and he clasps my glove firmly in his. I
help him stand, which he seems to do with some slight difficulty,
but less than I would have if I had taken his posture wearing all
that metal. “What do I call you?”

“I am Sir Obiwan Kendricks, Grandmaster of the Order
of the New Knights of Avalon.”

“’
Obiwan’
…” I blurt out involuntarily, hoping
it didn’t sound condescending.

“My father chose the name from a famous tale from old
Earth. When we were children, we would watch the Great Stories on
salvaged video files.”

“I know the story,” I assure him politely. “But I
haven’t heard of your ‘Order’, your ‘New Knights’.”

“We have kept our Holds and operations covert, even
from you, and for that I do apologize,” Kendricks explains. “But
this new threat required confronting. And you are, in many ways,
our brothers. We could not let you stand alone against it.”

“You wear the gear of my former comrades-in-arms,” I
let him know what I’ve noticed. I can see his eyes smile again
under his mask.

“I have been waiting to give you—or someone like
you—this recognition code for my entire life,” he tells me eagerly.
Then he draws his sword and begins to make letters in the sand
between us.

CROATOAN.

“The codeword was passed from our fathers and
forefathers, my father to me,” Kendricks explains.

“They were from Melas Three?” I ask him, as soon as
my shock settles enough to figure out where to start.

“I will tell you the tale of my ancestors, Colonel
Ram, Peacemaker,” he assures, carefully wiping and sheathing his
blade. “But first I must attend to mine. Valiant wounded. Honored
dead.”

“’He today who sheds his blood with me is my
brother’,” I steal someone else’s words. “You’re welcome to our
facilities, though I’m afraid we’ve over-burdened them.”

“My knights are all skilled in dealing with battle
trauma,” he gives me back. “There are some very skilled surgeons in
our Order. We can make due out here in the thin, but if you could
provide us a pressurized and heated working space, we can do much
more.”

 

I call Kastl, knowing Halley will be too busy to
respond, and tell him to put a crew on preparing whatever space we
can spare—barracks, storage bay, mess hall—to creating a hospital.
Then I have Lieutenant Horst escort the first of Sir Kendricks’
band—a group of two dozen carrying or assisting another fifteen
wounded between them—down to the base.

The “New Knights” move with impressive discipline,
despite their rather odd names and titles: I hear Kendricks give
orders to a Jean-Luc, a Logan, a Sirius, and a Sherlock, as well as
a number of others that are obscure or vague enough to keep my
brain struggling to consider which of the “Great Stories” they
might have come from.

I don’t need to tell Horst to keep an eye on them,
though they appear to be completely devoted to helping us—they
carry as many of our wounded as their own, and express gratitude
when our troopers return the courtesy. The ETE also assist, using
their technology to gently carry the wounded to care, using
pressure carefully generated from their tools to reduce
bleeding.

Still, it takes more than two hours to clear the
field of the living. (The Nomads were lucky—Abbas insists his
people on site suffered only minor injuries and do not need to
burden our facilities. I plan on visiting the camp to confirm that
with my own eyes as soon as I can.)

The surviving enemy combatants—numbering twenty-six
in various degrees of stability after two die waiting to be tended
to—are moved into portable shelters quickly set up on the surface.
At least four of them look like they won’t survive the night, but
I’ve got at least four times that many of my own—and Kendricks’
Knights—that are in worse shape.

Kendricks stays with me long enough to establish a
plan for treating the wounded and securing our combined dead, then
takes his leave to coordinate his own people, which now number over
one-hundred-and-fifty.

He had two-hundred-and-twelve when he came to our
defense. He lost almost as many as we did in helping us.

 

Once the wounded are out of the open air and being
triaged, the ETE set to helping Morales and Thomasen in clearing
wreckage, recovering our damaged ships, repairing bunker walls and
breached sections. They have little success with the aircraft: The
Lancer is likely beyond salvage, and out of the four ASVs I had
flying this morning, only one—McKay’s—is still able to get up off
the deck. Soto’s ship is a total loss.

Smith and Jane managed to come through their crash
with minor injuries, though Jane is especially upset at having
broken his remaining hand. Smith is nursing a ragged penetration
wound to his right calf—either a bullet or chunk of shrapnel having
punched into his cockpit. He’s also got broken ribs from the hard
landing.

Lieutenant Soto and his gunner Lieutenant Jeffers
weren’t nearly so lucky. We found them dead in the battered and
crushed remains of their cockpit module.

 

In the next few hours, three more of my people die in
surgery. Our enemies lose two waiting for care.

The Knights prove themselves to be very good field
surgeons—they’ve lost no more since the fight, and have been
helping take care of our wounded as well as those among our
captured enemy combatants.

 

We get our first reply from Earth within an hour of
the battle: a brief condolence for our losses and praise for our
bravery in the face of a terrible enemy, delivered by Secretary
Satrapi on behalf of the entire population of Earth.

The communications delay is getting worse as Earth
and Mars get farther apart. In a little over a month the sun will
be in the way and we won’t be able to get through at all unless
they get the replacement relay satellites positioned. And I was
hoping Earthside would send us something more than their heartfelt
regrets.

 

I don’t get any useful communication until Richards
calls us almost four hours later, having been prematurely revived
from shuttle Hiber-Sleep. He looks like a B-movie zombie.

“I’ve been briefed on your situation, Colonel. Know
that you absolutely made the right call, despite the cost.
Earthside intelligence is picking apart this Chang’s story,
analyzing his weaponry. I won’t make any guess at this point as to
whether he was telling the truth or some ridiculous fantasy to
manipulate you. I only wish I could get relief to you faster.
Hopefully you hurt him and his forces badly enough to buy us a few
months for our first flights to make orbit.

“I don’t plan on going back to sleep—I’ll set up a
com-center on my shuttle. I’ll get Colonel Burns awake as well.

“Find out what you can about our new friends and
enemies. Keep the intel flowing. Dig in deep. Fix what you can.
First relief is still on schedule for January, but now I’m not
optimistic it will be enough. Hopefully Earthside can figure out
some better countermeasures to deal with this Chang character if he
comes back.

“Pass along my gratitude to Ms. Greenlove’s citizen
soldiers, as well as to the Nomads and our mysterious allies. You
all did an impressive job—you have an
outstanding
group of
people down there. Take care of them. Richards out. Message
ends.”

It’s better news than I’d expected. And I don’t envy
Richards or Burns for condemning themselves to staying awake for
the tedious months interplanetary, just to avoid any further
unpleasant awakenings. I hope their ships are sizable.

 

I go down to our makeshift hospital to check on our
wounded and to take care of another pressing duty, bringing Sakina
with me for a number of reasons. I find “Grandmaster Obiwan”—or
rather, he seeks me out—as soon as Lieutenant Horst announces
“Commander on Deck!”

“Colonel Ram,” he greets formally but warmly. Without
his helmet he’s surprisingly thick-built, fit and muscular like an
Earth athlete, despite gray hair and lines that tell me he’s
probably pushing fifty. His long hair is tied back and he wears his
beard trimmed short. His eyes are ice blue, hard with experience,
but somehow serene.

“Grandmaster Kendricks,” I offer my hand, which he
grips enthusiastically again.

“Obiwan,” he prompts me. “We honor our parents but
use our given names with friends.” I don’t tell him I avoided
calling him Obiwan because I wasn’t sure I could say it with a
straight face.

“For a parent to name their child after a hero honors
both the child and the values the parents hold dear,” Sakina offers
with unexpected spontaneity, perhaps sensing my awkwardness.

“We have been passively monitoring your relations
with the Northern Nomads, Colonel,” Kendricks responds with a warm
grin, “but to have earned the loyalty of The Ghaddar is quite a
testament to your character. The Nomads say it is to have an angel
of God on your side if she is with you.”

Or a demon from hell against you if she is not—Abbas
had mentioned this to me during one of our long talks, but I don’t
finish the proverb aloud. I also don’t indicate that I have a lot
more than Sakina’s loyalty.

BOOK: The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds
6.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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