The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (37 page)

“Maybe he
did
only have the one built,” I
hope.

“He claimed he was in the process of building more.
It
would
be very satisfying to prevent him,” she lets me
know she’s still monitoring our transmissions home.

“Would you like your own modicum of revenge?” I
play.

“’The enemy of my enemy’ and all that,” she
discounts. “That is why you have come here. I could be so vulgar as
to accuse your ETE friends of allowing this attack upon us in order
to force us into an alliance.”

“The ETE feel responsible for not protecting you, for
not keeping a closer presence,” I try.

“Of course they do.
Pathetic
… We are not their
children any more than we are their prisoners. And we choose our
own path. What about you, Colonel Ram? Are you here because
you
believe we should stand together, or because your
Earthside Command agrees we are ‘on-planet assets’?”

“You had offered yourselves as such,” I remind her of
other transmissions. “But I’m here because you reached out to me
once.”

“Your ‘hope’ again. But the issue of the ETE still
stands between us.”

“Even in light of this new threat?”

“Your incoming shipments will be insufficient to
resupply your own base against another such attack,” she cuts to
it. “What will there be for us after we expend our resources coming
to your aid? We can protect our own. Dig in. Hide—something you
cannot adequately do.”

“Janeway was just sending a message and running,” I
return. “Chang himself will be more persistent and
devastating.”

“What can
you
do for us when even the mighty
ETE fail?”

“Combine our forces. Chang is no tactician. He does
not adapt well to the unexpected.”

“Then we should strike him
now
,” she
challenges. “Destroy his factories before he can build any more
ships.”

“I agree.”

“But they have ordered you to hold position, to
maintain a defensive posture,” she confirms she’s been able to
listen in on even our newly encrypted transmissions, “to wait for
relief that you know will be both too little and too late.”

“Our base will fall if we have to endure another such
attack. That is no secret.” I grin at her conspiratorially. “My
orders do not prohibit small reconnaissance missions, especially if
I don’t divert significant defensive resources from my bases.”

I think I see her smile under her mask.

“You no longer have significant defensive resources,”
she translates my meaning. “You know your only option is to run an
offensive guerrilla war. You must strike the enemy before they can
field another fleet against you.”

You give her a polite nod. She digests the
possibilities like a statue in the wind.

“You lack stealth and speed,” she finally concludes.
“Your soldiers are not shinobi.”

“I’m offering you a joint operation.”

“You want us to penetrate the Zodangan fortress for
you.”

“We estimate their defenses and sentries, but can’t
pinpoint them. We have a potential insertion vector. But I’d like
your shinobi to take point, scout the sites, help clear our way
in.”

“And what will you do, while we do all the work?”

“Perhaps I should be speaking with your brother,” I
suggest dully.

“My brother is less tolerant of Gaijin.”

“Your brother is wise not to expose himself,” I give.
“But a good Daimyo utilized both Bushi and Shinobi in warfare. Both
tools have their functions: Shinobi to gather intelligence and
weaken the enemy, Bushi to crush him.”

“You would not need us if you had your orbital
resources,” she points out.

“We could scan and bomb their facilities from orbit.
And Chang may take so long to recover that we get the opportunity,
but I doubt it. He knows he must establish dominance over this
planet before UNMAC can. If he can, he’ll strike again before we
get re-supplied in January. Certainly before real relief comes in
June.”

“So you reach out to us in your hour of need?” she
muses.

“And yours,” I reverse it. “If we fall, Chang will
focus on eliminating you next: Corporate Earth’s only other
foothold, and easier to deal with than the ETE.”

“And how will he deal with the ETE?”

“I suspect he’ll take advantage of their non-martial
nature,” I let her know what I’ve been thinking. “I’m sure he has
his plans developing. Or science. And if Chang
can
build
weapons that are effective against the ETE, I don’t want him to
have the chance to.”

She lets that stew in the wind for a few moments.
Then:

“How do you know we won’t simply take the opportunity
to betray you? To steal his supposed future-science—his weapons—for
ourselves?”

“I expect you’ll try. Please do. My own leaders will
certainly want me to do the same. And I expect both of us will have
as much success with that as you did trying to steal ETE
technology. If his assets could be taken, then the pirates and the
PK would have already done so for themselves, especially if Chang
himself is incapacitated.”

But I notice she freezes when I mention stealing from
the ETE—not her usual stoic performance—just for an instant. I feel
her withdraw inside herself. She
is
hiding something, or
keeping something in reserve. I let it go for now.

“I will relay your offer to my lord,” she agrees
formally.

“Thank you for hearing me, great lady.”

The ETE ship comes back and drops lazily after Sakura
and her entourage have made their usually-impressive exit,
disappearing into the open terrain.

“There is still no reason to trust them,” Paul feels
he has to remind me once we’re inside and cruising away home on
their mostly silent “engines”. The bay of their transport is like a
clean room, all bright white and sterile. Even their atmosphere
fields strip the Martian dust from us as we step through the
airlocks.

“I need to give them the choice,” I tell him again.
“The enemy of my enemy and all that…”

“They will use us to attempt to steal Chang’s
technology at first opportunity,” Sutter agrees with Paul. Sakina
nods her own agreement when I look to her.

“Probably turning on us in the field to do so,” I let
them know I’m taking the probability seriously. “Still…”

“Knowing what they’ll likely do, we could take steps
to anticipate, even exploit their behavior,” Sutter turns it,
supports my decision.

“Can Chang’s magnetic drives interfere with your
technology?” I ask Paul, now that he’s away from the eyes and ears
of his Station.

“We are personally hardened against EMR,” he
explains, though doesn’t sound confident. “But he could jam our
connections to our tools and our fellows.”

“We could give you guns, swords,” Sutter offers
innocently. Paul is impressively polite.

“It’s not our way,” he simply answers.

Not yet, I think but don’t say out loud. I think I
see a similar thought in Sakina’s eyes. Even she is more and more
tempted to carry a gun.

“Could you use another ship?” I offer what I expect
I’ll get myself in more trouble for. Paul looks at me like I’ve
offered something I can’t possibly give, like I’m joking. Thomas
looks confused.

“Are you serious?” Paul needs clarification.

“Call it a fair exchange for giving us a lift to
Zodanga. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but I’m sure your people can
do something with it.”

“One of your broken ASVs?” he guesses.

“I’m still banned from giving you UNMAC military
assets, even scrap,” I remind him. He still doesn’t look like he’s
following, so I let him have it easy: “The Lancer.”

“And your command will allow that?” he questions the
obvious.

“It’s not really ours,” I excuse, another rehearsal
of what I’ll eventually have to tell Earthside. “And we can’t
remotely make any use of it anymore.
And
we’ve sent full
scans of it back to Earthside, so it’s not like they need it for
any kind of investigation. As far as they’ve let on, they’re not
even interested in it. And if we strip its guns before we turn it
over, I’m not giving you military assistance.”

What I don’t say is that I expect Earthside will be
more bent that I gave the useless hulk to the ETE than that I gave
it away. But I also consider that some back on Earth might
appreciate the Lancer going away, taking potentially incriminating
evidence with it.

“Fair exchange for a lift?” Paul reflects, then
confronts. “You didn’t think we’d let you go to Zodanga alone?”

“I assumed you’d been making your own plans.”

“We had intended to deal with Chang ourselves,
excluding you for your own safety. Our Council was reluctant to
attempt to approach the Zodangan stronghold directly. It is too
well defended, and that’s just what we’ve been able to scan along
the Northeast Rim. There would be extreme violence, loss of life we
could not avoid, and we have no idea where their manufacturing
facilities are.”

“We think we’ve identified the most likely location
to start looking,” I give him what I’ve made sure not to broadcast
on even the most secure channels. “
And
the most viable
approach plan to minimize resistance.”

“Fair exchange for the lift?” he repeats.

“And you help us reduce loss of life,” I add to the
offer.

“You’re intending
not
to have to kill
pirates?” Paul barely believes. Sutter looks even more
surprised.

“My mission is to cripple or destroy Chang’s
manufacturing base,” I clarify. “The Zodangans are pawns,
expendable, whether they’ve figured it out or not.”

“We could simply run the mission ourselves,” Paul
makes the obvious counter. “It’s not that my teams wouldn’t
appreciate your council in combat, but you and yours would be
vulnerable where we are not. More so if you attempt to engage the
enemy directly.”

“My concern is Earthside,” I tell him what I’ve been
mulling.

“They won’t trust us to deal with Chang,” Paul says
it before I can.

“Even after your brother’s sacrifice,” I say it
before he can.

But then I see him smile. It’s an uncharacteristic,
almost wicked smile.

“You haven’t told your command what you’re planning,”
he realizes.

“We need to maintain communications silence,” I give
yet another planned excuse. “Chang or his allies are likely able to
hack our transmissions.”

“Yet you include the Shinkyo,” he criticizes lightly
after a pause to digest.

“They would be best able to locate hidden sentries
and avoid them,” I try, “find the best ways to penetrate the
facilities undetected.”

“And so much for avoiding loss of life,” Paul
counters.

“Set whatever rules of engagement you like,” I
give.

“Assuming they’d honor any,” he discards.

“Worse if we didn’t use them,” I argue. “Neither of
us could as effectively get in without alerting the Zodangans,
bringing their forces down on us. They’re the best choice to take
point—the pirates are expecting
us
.”

“They are almost guaranteed to betray you. Your
Knight-friend is correct: Once we help them get themselves in, they
steal what they want, and then either turn on us or alert the
Zodangans to our presence, slip away while we’re under fire.”

“You’ve been paying attention to your lessons,” I
praise him.

“It’s not an idle study,” he lets me know. He is
becoming a soldier, and not as reluctantly as he likely
expected.

“Hopefully they’ll value what they can gain by
alliance more than what they can gain by betrayal,” Sutter does his
own hopeful moralizing.

“I have to give them the opportunity to prove
themselves either way,” I cut to it.

“Sadly, treachery will be the more convincing
demonstration,” Paul realizes.

19 November, 2116:

Our odd fellowship takes flight before sunrise.

One thing I regret about leaving in darkness is that
I don’t get to properly appreciate the ETE’s handwork. They brought
the newly restored and refitted Lancer in the dead cold of night,
and we didn’t even risk lighting it up with spotlights as it
settled silently onto Pad 5.

From what I could see from the Command Tower, and
then as we crossed the pad from the personnel elevator to the
underbelly airlock, it is not the same ship. The original black
finish is now shiny metallic. The wings are mostly gone, trimmed to
vestigial stumps. And the nose terminates in a transparent bubble,
like an old WWII bomber, several meters now trimmed from its
length. Similar viewing bubbles sprout on either side of what’s
still the cockpit. The lift engines, of course, have been replaced
with the featureless smooth spheres common to the other ETE
retrofits. And where Morales pulled the gun turrets I see more
sphere-like protrusions—I wonder if they function as shields or
weapons or both.

“One ship,” I told Paul when he offered more. “We
need to get in with minimal attention. If we can’t do what we need
to with a quick small insert, your people can come back in force,
do it your way.” Something I hope doesn’t need to happen for
several reasons.

In the below-freezing darkness, I walk from the
personnel elevator to greet our “escorts”. The ETE are already
standing in a loose but disciplined parade line in front of their
new ship, looking entirely like the cold isn’t noticeable. But
then, I notice the thin air does get significantly warmer as I
approach. I also realize that the six sealsuits lined up at-ease on
the pad are different colors: It looks like Paul has brought a
representative from each of the six Melas Stations: Blue (which I
figure is him), Violet, Red, Orange, Gold, and Green.

(“What? No Pink Power Ranger?” I hear Matthew’s voice
in my head, and I smile briefly under my own mask.)