Warzone: Nemesis: A Novel of Mars (26 page)

“Boys and girls, you’re about to embark upon the final frontier. I hope you all have your wills prepared.” We all looked up with questions in our eyes, but were cut off before anyone could speak. “You boys remember San Francisco? You know, pretty girls, fine food, music and culture? Where we’re going, there isn’t any of the aforementioned,” he said, laughing at his own cleverness and our uneasiness. “Fasten your seatbelts; we’re going to your new home.” We stowed our gear onto the transport freighter and buckled up. The freighter lifted off in a plume of fire and a cloud of hot gases—we were past the point of no return and I was committed. Part of me thought,
well, you’ve gone and done it now
; the other part of me said,
bring it on.

Once we broke orbit on the way to our new post, CPT Ripsnort gathered us together. “Okay, we should arrive on Luna in sixteen hours. Those getting off on Luna will need to stay in a space suit for the trip. Your suit is pressurized to four hundred millibars, which is our standard for all posts. Since you’ve recently undergone high-altitude training, you’re already adapted to it. The gravity onboard is artificial and matches Luna for the benefit of you boys going there, but will be adjusted to Martian gravity for the rest of the trip for you other men. The cabin pressure for the rest of you is seven hundred fifty millibars to start, and will be tapered down to four hundred gradually over the course of the trip to Mars. For those going to Mars, we’re going to be together for a little over two months so don’t irritate me. We have a few ways to help you pass the time during our trip. The ship has a gerbil gym, and you’re expected to exercise regularly and keep fit during the trip.

There are a lot of old movies in the library, and we have lots of games. Your new commanders want you to play some flight and combat sims, based on past encounters with Soviets. Also, there’s an orientation video I know you all will enjoy. After you have seen it, sign off on the training sheet. You’ll also continue your Russian language studies. I’m a qualified instructor.”

The orientation video piqued my interest. I had a lot of questions, and I felt I’d find most of my answers in the video. The other pilots were curious, too. The video viewing room was big enough for three people, and it was finally my turn. We were looking for some answers, to change the uncertainties of the unknown into the certainties of the known. The screen flickered announcing the beginning and the narrator began to speak.

“The struggle between the Soviets and Americans isn’t new. While the Americans have a public war going on in Southeast Asia and a very public space race, we’re conducting a secret war on other worlds in our solar system with the Soviets.

The ASDC uses technology and materials from an alien race called the Ktahrthians. The technology we have extracted is either from crashed spaceships we’ recovered on Earth, or from archaeological digs for relics on Luna and Mars. From the relics we’ve deciphered, we’ve determined that the alloy-x we do have comes from a vessel about the size of Earth’s moon, which served as their space station, home world and ship. The relics cipher told the story of a race who had to abandon their home world because their star went into nova stage. The Ktahrthians built the great vessel to transport their colonists, ships and technology to look for a suitable home world. The disc that crashed on Earth in 1959 was part of an exploratory expedition. They’d hoped to colonize Earth. They’d built a base and started an aqueduct system on Mars, only to have their colonial ship blow up from some kind of mechanical failure, killing all of the colonists and sending the material from the station flying into space.

According to the archaeological digs historical account, only a few ships that were away from their space station survived. That included only a handful of discs along with the technicians and support staff on a couple of bases. From what we read, the ships and their crews left our solar system. The technology from the archaeological digs on Luna and Mars is the basis for much of the technology we use in our ships and buildings.

We also have other advanced technology in medicine, computers, communications and mechanical engineering that we’ve gleaned from the relic ciphers from different archaeological digs. We use the controlled-release strategy to market some of the technology, using the cash to finance our war efforts. The ASDC mission focuses on both the fight to obtain any alien technology left in archaeological digs and the possession of alloy-x. Alloy-x still falls in meteor showers, and we still fight battles over it.

Luna has no atmosphere and the atmosphere on Mars is nearly one hundred percent carbon dioxide. Fortunately alloy-x can also be used for constructing ships and weapons based on alien designs. We’re limited to hovercraft physics, because of the weight of the fighting vessels and weapons. The hovercraft we use have antigravity drives to hover and conventional carbon-based fuels for propulsion. The original alien discs as well as the transport freighters we use for space travel are completely antigravity driven. Our brass use a faster antigravity transport freighter with hyperdrive, but it actually consumes the alloy-x antigravity drive after a time. It may cause the transport freighter to fly twice as fast, but it wastes the very valuable alloy-x.

We use heavy transports to move everything from troops, machine parts, water, food, medicine, tools, and everything from toothpaste to live fish and plants. Luna is far from self-sufficient. Mars is as close to being self-sufficient as it gets.

An expedition will soon establish the newest post on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons. Eventually all of the Galilean moons of Jupiter will have posts, as well as Saturn’s moon Titan.”

The rest of the video was technical in nature. It covered how we maintained and built life-support systems, and other operational details. I was particularly interested in the Rules of Engagement, negotiated by accords struck with the Soviets on Luna and Mars.

Sixteen hours later we arrived on our first stop, Earth’s moon, and I was utterly amazed. I’d no idea we could travel that fast. On the lunar post, we met some other pilots who manned the post there. None of them used real names. Names like 2LT Joystick, CPT No Name, and SGT Slingshot were some of the names we encountered.

Afterward we were all given our bunks, and told to report to mess at eighteen hundred. I grabbed a tray and looked around. I had the sense of awkwardness a kid has in a new school on his first day. Finally, my eyes met up with someone, who looked as if he’d give me the time of day. I wanted to know what I’d gotten myself into.
A post on the moon
, I thought.
The American public had no idea. What else didn’t they know about?
I sat my tray next to the lieutenant. “2LT Cowboy,” I announced.

“Good name. I’m known as 2LT Undertaker. I guess you’ve got a lot of questions. What did they tell you?”

“They said that I’d be fighting Soviets, and I wouldn’t have any politicians or antiwar activists to worry about. They showed us an orientation video that answered some questions. My duty post is Mars.” I took a bite of scrambled eggs and washed it down with a sip of coffee.

“US Navy, I’ll bet,” he stated, as though it should be have been obvious.

“Sure, I am or was a sailor.”

“The first Commander of Luna was COL Cavender, a marine. Luna is a
Marine-only
post by tradition. Mars is a
Navy-only
post; they are a little more relaxed. You’ll hear an occasional
aye
instead of
yes
, and it usually regarded as a correct military courtesy there.” He paused to let it sink in, and attacked his eggs and biscuits. “How was your first spaceflight?”

“I’m still thinking if I pinch myself that I’ll wake up and learn it was just all a dream. It is hard to believe that space travel on short notice already exists. I feel like I left Vietnam and woke up in a science fiction movie. As far as the ride over, re-entry was pretty rough.”

His eyes twinkled like firelight and a knowing smile played across his lips. “Only VIP transport freighters that carry the brass are exact replicas of the original alien discs. Our tanks use a combination of antigravity technology and hydrogen gas combustion propulsion. Troops are moved with hybrids of conventional and alien supply transports unless the need is particularly urgent. The real differences in flying alloy-x ships using strictly alien technology are in the amount of weight they can carry and how smooth the landing and takeoff are. ASDC command isn’t worried about soldiers having a smooth ride. To be sure, antigravity technology makes re-entry and launch as smooth as silk. Rocket technology is a real rough ride by comparison. Everything hinges upon the economics of alloy-x, and we can’t waste any.”

“I can’t believe I’m actually on the Moon. Tell me about the post here.”

“The space race was not what it seemed. ASDC’s first commander, GEN Colson took the picture of the Ranger 6 Lunar Lander in ‘64 with a camera. The first American post, Eagle 1 was later destroyed by the Soviets and this post is Eagle 2. The first battalion on Luna was called the Black Dogs, with all marines under COL Cavender. The marines of Eagle 1 died rather than surrender. Marines here are very proud of them. You’ll hear of the Black Dogs from time to time. There is a Bronze statue of CPT Smith facing down a Soviet tank with his service pistol in front of this post.” His eyes shown with pride, and it was clear that because CPT Smith was a marine, my new friend shared in his historic and courageous stand. “To keep our secrecy from lunar probes and Landers, we have people working inside NASA, providing the codes for the transmission feeds. This way whenever a probe or Lander tries to take live pictures, our computer actually takes the equipment over and gives them archive feeds of old pictures before we got here. Luna was the first world the ASDC colonized, and the most important.”

“Tell me about Mars.”

“The commander on Mars is COL Squid, a former Navy SEAL. He prefers to have naval personnel working for him. He’s a tough one, a fourth-degree black belt in Okinawan Karate, and makes his men work out three times a week. If you’re going to serve there, it is because he chose you, not the other way around.”

“I understand I’m officially dead and have a new identity. How did they do that?”

The young marine flashed a knowing smile as if he were about to reveal a club password or secret handshake. He stabbed some scrambled eggs with his fork and pointed it at me. “One of the big shots on the Central Command is LTG Amidio Mondragon. He job is information and influence. Think CIA, only without government controls. If you need records created or destroyed anywhere, he’s your man. The ASDC has secured a large amount of social security numbers over the years and has built identities when needed around them, complete with work and tax records, driver’s licenses, high school diplomas and the like.”

“What happens if I’m ever fingerprinted back on Earth? My fingerprints are in the Navy’s database as belonging to a certain dead junior-grade lieutenant.”

“Not to worry—we have people in the Navy and other branches of government that take care of that. The real magic starts with one of several coroners whom we have in our employ. Every time a dead body shows up, they scan the fingerprints and send them to our spook group. The spooks run them through all known databases. If they have no previous military, government service, or arrest record, the prints are proclaimed “clean.” Those fingerprints are then swapped with the ones in your own file. Then they attach your real fingerprints to your cover as an active duty naval officer, in your case—alive and kicking.”

“Amazing.”

“LTG Mondragon is one good friend to have—definitely not someone you want as an enemy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. When my tour of duty is up, then what?”

“Eagle 2 has been here since July, so we haven’t been here long enough so that any of us has finished a tour yet. However, Eagle I was here since November of 1963, so we have a little history to go on. If you are ready to retire, they will magically resurrect you as though you’d never died. If not, you’ll go back to the Academy as an instructor, or accept a promotion and another duty assignment. Some of them retired to some civilian or government job, with a selective type of amnesia if you get my drift. Believe me, if you still alive after four years, you’ll be instructor material.”

I held my fork up to indicate I was about to bring up an important point. “I haven’t seen any women here.”

“Yeah, that’s a serious drawback. This is a hardship post, no women or children. The next time I’m on leave, I intend to spend a lot of time in their company.”

“If my understanding of planetary science is right, sometimes Mars is a very long way from Earth. What about my leave time or discharge?”

“Well, with Luna being only sixteen hours away we’ve been promised two weeks every year. Mars is a different story. You are a minimum of two months away from Earth, and can be up to four. Mars is a very new post, but I’ve been told Mars only will only get leaves every two years, one month plus travel time. So far no one has been there long enough to go on leave. On Mars, they only intend to launch transport freighters when the orbital alignments make for a shorter flight. There’s been talk that we are soon to start a new post on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, which is even further away for travel time. It’s twice the size of Luna. There is enough water ice on the surface to melt for water, and an oxygen atmosphere, though it is very thin. The reason they’re going there first is the geological survey team sent out reported that there is more alloy-x there than in the other moons combined. I was offered a transfer there with a three year enlistment and a six-month leave in between if I re-enlist and a large cash bonus.”

“You didn’t volunteer?”

“No, I’m a marine, and marines serve here.”

“The new commander setting up the post on Ganymede is not a marine or a sailor?”

“No one knows yet.”

“Hey, I’m not shipping out for a couple days. Any chance of my flying patrol while here on the moon?”

“Not a chance, if we lose one of you boys before you get to your post, there will be hell to pay. Besides, COL Red Fangs is a former marine, and we’re all former marines. He doesn’t like squids in his tanks, sorry.”