The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (41 page)

And I hear Matthew in my head, grumbling some choice
epithets.

“Proceed with extreme caution, Colonel. Your priority
is still the protection of those in your charge. However, anything
you can learn about what Chang and the Zodangans have in the works
will likely be critical to that priority. Good luck, and may God be
with you all. Richards out. Ending transmission.”

Vague. Politic. And too damn far from what’s really
going on down here to make a reasonable judgment. But at least he
didn’t censure me for pulling in the ETE, giving them the Lancer
(however useless to us it was).

I feel obligated to tell Paul to keep his people away
from us; that every time they fight for us, Earthside is using the
opportunity to look for ways to fight them. But that would
certainly end me.

I sip a cooling cup of Martian tea, look out at our
perimeter through the Command Tower plexi. Watch Thomasen’s crews
attempt to patch salvaged aircraft guns (including the Lancer’s)
into our ravaged turrets. I know it won’t be enough. One
“Brimstone” could bring us down.

Paul calls me before I can get further tempted to
call him.

“We may have even more serious problems,” he opens,
and I feel dread at the thought of what the ETE would consider
more
serious. “We’ve gone back to the canyon a few times.
The good news is there’s been no sign of Brimstone. The bad is what
we think we found left behind. The scrap littered on the canyon
floor was a mix of old and new, based on the age of the cuts made
during salvage. The fresh we were able to match to the United
States built colonies. The only ones still standing in the region
are the PK sites. So we sent flights to look them over. Industry
and Pioneer still look the same, at least from the air. But
Frontier is… well… It’s gone.”

He sends me video. The site is a series of freshly
excavated craters.

“Granted, it was likely their least-viable colony.
But this especially worries me, given the illustrations we saw on
the walls in the Zodangan hangers…”

There’s an impression in the sand. Flattened, pressed
down, rectangular, with clean edges like someone laid a big plank
on it. But when Paul zooms out, I see that the compressed area is
almost the size of the colony site. Handy pop-up graphics confirm:
the rectangular “footprint” is two-hundred-fifty meters long and
twenty-five wide.

“We’ve been searching Candor,” he tells me heavily.
“It’s a big place, but there’s been no sign of any other activity,
certainly nothing as big as the depressed pattern in the regolith
indicates. It may be some kind of deception, but we need to be
sure. We may need to go up into Ophir. They could be keeping out of
the atmosphere nets intentionally to avoid us.”

“Then they could also be operating outside the
valleys,” I take it further. “But that assumes they’ve got the
resources to maintain a fully sealed environment for what may be
hundreds or even thousands of people.”

“And there’s been no unusual draw off our feed
lines.”

I stew over that, looking at the
hundreds-of-meters-long “footprint” in the sand, thinking about how
thoroughly outgunned (and apparently out-maneuvered) we are, how
easy it would be for Chang to wipe us out.

My brain has been spinning sleeplessly over this
since Chang pounded us barely a month ago. Now the fear that he’s
got even greater military assets…

But every option—sensible or fantastical—that I can
generate would be unacceptable for Earthside. They would much
rather lose us than cross those lines.

(“Your priority is still the protection of those in
your charge.”)

“Brimstone—Harper—she had tech that could resist your
tools,” I remind Paul, focusing on another looming monster.

“Chang probably learned from his first encounter with
us,” Paul expects. “And this proves his technology is somehow
superior even to ours.”

What he doesn’t say: that might support the theory
that Chang
is
somehow from the future, not just some mad
genius tinkering in a cave somewhere.

“Harper lost her legs and her hand—and maybe more
than that—during our first encounter with the Zodangans, the one
you broke up,” I let him know, wondering: “How long was Chang
working on her?”

“How long has Chang been working with the Zodangans?”
Paul distills the question, “or the PK?”

“Janeway was dropping hints months ago, like he had
something he was keeping close to the chest,” I recall. “But then,
so was Sakura.”

“I doubt the Shinkyo have any alliances with Chang,”
Paul easily discounts. “Unless that was a show she put on for us.
She has sacrificed her own for less.”

“Chang would go after them because of their nanotech
work, assuming he was honest about his mission,” I go back to
reason. “More so now that they’ve shown how far they’ve
progressed.”

“With technology they’ve probably reverse-engineered
from us,” Paul gives me his frustration.

I smile involuntarily.

“What?” Paul wants to know.

“Chang. He’s awfully preachy about wiping out all
nanotech…”

“Except his own, which is well ahead of anything he
says he needs to take away from the rest of us,” Paul lets me know
he’s been thinking the same thing. Then he gets back to pressing
concerns: “What do we do about the Shinkyo?”

“At least we know we can’t count on them as allies.
Militarily speaking, I’d love to beg, borrow or steal their
developments for our own use,” I give him something honest that I’m
sure will scare him, “just like I‘d love to have your tech as well.
But that’s out of the question, if for no more reason than my
command would never accept it. But I need to protect my
people.”

“And you can’t,” Paul says it.

“I’m content to let the Shinkyo toe-to-toe it with
Chang, just so he has another thorn in his side, but I doubt
they’ll be able to do much more than hold their own against
him.”

“A more frightening thought: What would they be if
they
could
beat him?”

“Then they’d just become a different version of the
threat he poses to all of us,” I downplay, though I have been
thinking of that nightmare as well.

I see Paul simmering on something for a few breaths
before he decides to tell me:

“My people, while not as imminently threatened as
yours, are becoming similarly frustrated, disillusioned. And like
you, there are things that would make military sense that my
leaders—that
most
of us—would also never accept.”

“And Earth would fear you all the more,” I add the
obvious to it.

He takes another deep breath.

“It’s no secret that Earth is racing to find some way
to fight us, even destroy us,” he cuts to it. “Chang’s threat gives
them even more reason to accelerate an agenda they already
had.”

“And what are you going to do?” I ask, not specifying
whether I’m asking about the ETE or Paul personally.

“We will protect life on this planet,” he reads me
the line, but there’s a new edge under it.

“Just don’t become as single-minded as Chang,” I
warn, making it sound like I’m joking.

“You, too,” he bounces back to me with gravity.

I find Sakina in one of the last places I would have
expected. But then, too much is changing too fast.

Out back beyond the aircraft pads, Horst and Rios are
checking her out on a selection of heavy trooper weapons: chain
guns, grenade launchers, vehicle-killing sniper rifles. A selection
of H-A suits are along for the “lesson”. (Apparently Sakina’s
overcome her reluctance to “train” in front of others, or she’s
just that urgent.)

“The enemy is heavily armored and can at least
partially regenerate,” Horst is wasting air reminding her. “But
Lady Sakura’s iron giant didn’t get up again after he lost his
head, and Brimstone looked like she was in trouble when you got
blades deep inside her suit. If you could get a serious HE charge
in there, past her armor, it might do her. Or whatever we seen
next.”

“The trick will be staying out of reach while you do
it,” Rios adds, having reviewed our mission videos extensively.

“We must assume they will adapt,” Sakina says firmly,
taking aim with a big-bore long gun. She takes her time, and it
kicks her hard when she takes the shot, but I see a chunk of scrap
a few hundred yards downrange get torn into, then explode.

“So far, we haven’t seen Chang use defensive fields
like the ETE,” I drop into the conversation. Horst has his troopers
snap-to, but I tell them to get back to it. “He seems confident his
tech can take a pounding.”

“It may be about the power requirement,” Rios offers.
“The ETE have probably perfected some kind of ultra-small-scale
cold fusion for their tools, possibly muon-catalyzed if it’s based
on any of the colony-era research.” He’s apparently been doing a
lot of research of his own, probably hovering over Rick and Anton,
pouring over whatever UNCORT has been willing to send us. Doing his
job. “The most energy-hungry thing we’ve seen Chang use is probably
the lift system for his flagship, but even that was conventionally
assisted by fans and jets.”

“He’s relying on the inherent qualities of his
materials,” I guess.

“Kind of like what passed for his own body,” Horst
extrapolates.

“And what the Shinkyo managed to pull off with their
metal man,” Rios agrees.

If it wasn’t so grim a subject, I’d smile: At least
my people are trying to adapt to the terrifying (and dizzyingly
fast) evolution of warfare on this world.

Sakina is ignoring us, sizing up another shot. She
blows away a junk fuel canister at three hundred yards.

“Can this weapon be made more portable?” she wants to
know.

“We have bullpup versions in the armory,” Horst tells
her. “Moves all the action back behind the trigger into the stock,
makes it about a foot shorter with the same barrel length. Blast is
a little more severe for the shooter.”

She hefts the long gun, looks like she’s considering
what the difference would be.

“I’ll get you one,” Rios offers before she can ask.
She nods, but there’s no smiling for her, either.

At “home” after dinner, her new rifle sits propped in
the corner next to her mat, complete with a belt of thick
magazines.

“The problem with weapons like that is you need
material support,” I tell her as she takes off her armor. “Run out
of ammo and it’s just a poor club. Dead weight.”

She ignores me initially, keeps undressing as I watch
her from the bed.

“I thought you wanted me to learn how to shoot,” she
eventually says, her voice level.

“I’m wondering if that was such a good idea.”

“It was a necessary evolution,” she stays distant.
“My blades could not effectively neutralize Brimstone. Or
Chang.”

“I doubt anything we have will serve that
purpose.”

“You think I should avoid the fight.” It isn’t a
question. But then she asks: “Would you?”

“I can’t.”

“Then I cannot,” she gives me firmly, still not
looking at me. I hear her take a breath before she says: “Are you
planning to die?”

“I think I’m expecting it,” I admit. “I can’t give
ground, but I know I can’t defend it. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so
off my game lately. I’m not into ‘last stands’.”

“But that is what your commanders expect you to
do.”

She’s down to her mail shirt and her environment
suit. She kneels on her mat at my feet. I reach out, make her take
my hand, hold it. Warm. Alive.

“Without saying so,” I tell her.

I hear her take another deep breath, center
herself.

“I know you. I have studied you. You win because you
change the rules of the battle, even if it means defying your
superiors.”

“That defiance has parameters,” I let her down,
“limits I can’t cross.”

“They have not ordered you to die.”

“I don’t think we can win this fight,” I say it.

“
You
can,” she insists firmly.

My turn to breathe.

“Not if I have to defend all these people.”

“They can defend themselves,” she believes. “And they
will fight for you, whether or not you ask them to.”

“There are limits I don’t think
I
can cross,”
I say it out loud.

I see her smile, just with the corner of her mouth,
just for an instant. Her head is still down, not looking at me.

“I cut the genitals off of my enemies,” she reminds
me, “and you promised me that you have done far more shocking
things in your time.”

I realize I don’t have anything to say to that. So I
get down off the bed, down on the mat with her, and I kiss her like
this is the only time we have.

24 December, 2116:

I’m sure history will call it the “Christmas Eve
Summit”. Or maybe the Christmas Eve Tribunal.

The most promising part for me is that Mark
Stilson—Council Blue—actually agreed to leave the sanctuary of his
Station and come to us in person. He even folds away his helmet to
greet me as soon as he clears the airlock, and more impressively
keeps
it off, even if it’s only because he knows he’ll be on
video and under scrutiny.

Paul is with him, but whoever else he’s brought in
his ship (one of their transports, not the Lancer) stays aboard and
out of sight. Perhaps he doesn’t want this to look like any kind of
show of force, while his son serves as a familiar face, a buffer
for the father’s usual chilly aloofness. Or perhaps he wants to
show that even “nano-contaminated freaks” have families (and remind
Earth that he’s already lost one son helping us).

Kastl had a team go to extra lengths to clean the
Command Briefing Room, hoping to make our guest however more
comfortable. I discourage him from setting out food or drink—I
don’t want any Earthside eyes judging the ETE’s reluctance to eat
anything they haven’t processed as either arrogance or a potential
weakness to exploit. We can always offer something we’ve grown or
made fresh later, when we don’t have billions of suspicious and
prejudicial eyes on us.