Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

Askel had put
some credit behind the bar and Lucero and her senior officers had taken full
advantage.  The Helios personnel were more restrained but lubricated
enough to form the beginnings of working friendships with some of the senior
Ephialtes
officers.  There was still a lingering suspicion emanating from them - that
would take weeks to subside - but they seemed a little more
human and appeared, on the surface at least, to accept that the stowaways had a
job of work to do, and that they had to help them get on with it.  Lund
lightened up a little, too.  She had been intensely focused for the last
few days and though she knew she would need that intensity in the coming months
she was smart enough to realise that even she couldn’t retain that level of focus
and concentration indefinitely.  It was important that she relax now and
then.

Toward the
end of the session, when most of the Helios people had drifted off, Lund found
herself talking with Lucero.  Lucero had started out as a drone pilot but
had been offered officer training in light of her outstanding record. 
She’d found herself in some Indonesian backwater when the war had broken out,
overseeing a drone base.  The base eventually became as near as you could
to get to being on the front line by the time the war ended, and had come under
direct attack from manned ships and aircraft.  Lucero lost people in the
most ferocious attack, and would have received a citation for bravery under
fire had her superior officer, three thousand miles away, not shot it down on
the grounds that she should never have let the attack proceed as far as it did
to necessitate such damn-fool heroics.

She lucked
into the position on
Ephialtes
.  Experienced senior commanders were
thin on the ground and such a fearsome machine of war demanded a commanding
officer who had field experience.  She had been second choice but the
first choice had become involved in some sort of incident that remained
obscure.  One minute he was going to be commodore of a flagship
spacecraft, the next he resigned his commission and was bundled quietly out the
back door.  So be it.  Lucero was only too happy to step up and take
his place.

“You like
this ship?” said Lund.

Lucero
nodded.  “You built us a fine vessel.”

“We tried
to.”

“It’s
certainly impressive.  I’m proud to serve here.”

“How do you
feel about Mars?”

Lucero
thought.  “I’m a service gal, Lund.  I go where they send me. 
Milwaukee, Timbuktu, it’s all the same to me.”

“Mars is a
little different, though, right?”

“It is? 
It’s a sightseeing trip, it’s not a mission.  We go there, look scary,
come
back.  I’ve had my war, Askel.  This is all
gravy to me.”

“You got
family?”

“Some,
scattered around.  Got a husband down there, somewhere,” she gestured
toward the Earth, just visible through one of the high-res virtual
windows in the social area.  Lund laughed.

“How about
you?”

“I’ve got
family,” said Lund.

“Got a
fella?” said Lucero, warming to the subject.

“No,” said
Lund.  “There was someone a while back, but, you know.  Work, the
war .
 . .”

“Where is he
now?” said Lucero, the slightest slur in her voice.

“I’m not
sure,” said Lund.  “Last I heard he’d gone back to Mars.”

“Shit the
bed!”  Lucero exclaimed.  “We’re heading out that way.  Give me
his address and we’ll drop a tactical nuke on his head.”

Lund
laughed.  “It’s not like that, we
just .
 . . I
don’t know.  People change, I guess.”

Lucero lifted
her glass.  “Well, if we’re not going to kill him let’s at least drink to
the son of a bitch.”

Lund clinked
her glass against Lucero’s.  “To Bobby,” she said.

“Bobby!”
Lucero spluttered.  “What kind of stupid-assed name is that!?” 
She reflected a little.  “To Bobby,” she said, in mock seriousness, and
downed the drink.

When Lund got
back to her quarters she was feeling a little woozy.  She should have
remembered from her time with the Commander Program, and when she was working
on
Otus
, that it was foolish to try to match
the military drink for drink.  She would have been embarrassed to admit it
but she had wanted to keep up with Lucero in order to impress her, or at least
to give her the idea that she wasn’t like the other white bread civilians she
was going to have to be putting up with.

Askel crashed
onto her bed and lay on her back.  She looked up at the ceiling, checking
for room spin, relieved to find there was none.  She felt like she should
sleep, but when she closed her eyes sleep would not come.  Her mind was
swimming with thoughts of past, present and future.  A lot had happened in
the last few years and a lot was happening very fast right now.  Staying
busy and focused had helped her to keep everything in perspective, but right
now she was anything but focused.  Her mind was a jumble of thoughts about
what she needed to do to get the project up and running and on track; about
whether Lucero and her people were going to be a problem; about her personal
life - or lack of it - but she kept coming back
to Bobby.

She hadn’t
thought about him much in the last few months but tonight with the drinking and
with Lucero probing her about it he had been on her mind a lot.  She
guessed too that she was probably feeling lonely.  She hadn’t really
thought, until tonight, about the fact that Bobby was on Mars, where the
Aloadae
were headed.  Lucero was joking about the nuke, but what if it came to
that?  Oh, that’s just ridiculous, she told herself.  Of course it
won’t come to that.  Like Lucero had said, the mission was going to be
more or less a pleasure cruise.

“But what
if .
 . .”

The argument
went round and round in her head, ‘but what if . . .’, followed
by ‘that’s ridiculous’, back to ‘what if’, and round and round again.

She thought
about the first time she met Bobby.  They were exciting times.  She
was young, on her first big assignment and Bobby and the other commander candidates
were young and full of life and excitement too.  The war built a feeling
of comradeship and purpose amongst them, and they played as hard as they
worked.

She was
attracted to Bobby immediately.  He was cocky and sure of himself like the
others but there seemed to be a bit more depth to him.  At times he seemed
uncertain and he was more open than most about the limits to his abilities in
the command drones.  He still boasted, but his boasts were realistic
compared to the others.  He was sensitive to Lund, too.  Where the
others would rip the piss out of her when she screwed up, he would go easy,
sensing her discomfort and offering reassurance.  She knew he had taken
risks to do that.  The pack mentality of the commanders could easily have
been turned on him, but he trod the line carefully, remaining one of the boys
but supporting Askel when she needed it.

He could be
cruel, too.  They had had great times when they first got together, but
sometimes he could be indifferent to
Askel’s
emotional needs.  He could seem cold and uncaring, but at other times he
was a rock for Askel to lean on.

The long
distance relationship had worked - just - for a
while but when Bobby announced he was going back to Mars things fell
apart.  Askel could see that Bobby had not made any allowance for her in
his plans.  He said he had to go back because his dad was dying, with no
mention about what that meant to their relationship.  She knew he had
hated his father, and his father had hated him, so it made no sense to her that
he would leave her for a minimum of two years unless he thought the
relationship was through.  Maybe, she thought, something had happened to
him in the war.  In his book he had made the fighting seem like an
exciting adventure, but she wondered if what he had gone through had had a
profound but unseen effect on him.  Whatever it was, he was going and it
seemed like Askel didn’t figure in his plans.  He never even said goodbye.

As she lay on
the bed Lund suddenly felt morose and sad.  She could feel the tears welling
up in her eyes as she relived the moment Bobby told her he was going
home.  She wished he was there with her now, though she didn’t know
whether she would slap him in the face or hug him until he couldn’t breathe.

She tried to
shake the feelings of sadness.  ‘It’s just the drink,’ she told herself,
and even though she knew it
was
the drink, she also knew it wasn’t
just
the drink.

She tried to
think about the happier times with Bobby, but that just made it worse.

Askel woke
with a throbbing head and an aching stomach.  As bad as she felt, she felt
in some way purged, as though some voodoo ritual had been performed on her and
the bad juju had been cast out.  She knew there was work ahead and that
was where all her energies had to be focused from now on.  She showered
quickly and made her way to the refectory.  While she rushed her breakfast
she tapped her comdev, requesting the presence of her senior team members on
the hangar deck within the next fifteen minutes.  She had taken a pill for
the headache but it wasn’t having much effect.  She downed her orange
juice and headed for the hangar deck.

She waited
for around five minutes and made some small talk with the few who had turned up
in time.  She couldn’t bear tardiness, so as soon as the allotted time
came around she began.

“This is a
big project for Helios.  We are against the clock.  The client has
specifically asked for this work to be carried out at the utmost haste. 
We have told the client we can deliver on that; I think we can.”

A couple of latecomers
rounded the corner and Askel fixed them with laser-beam eyes.

“In order to
deliver this project on time we have to work fast, we have to work smart and we
have to work honestly.  If you’re going to miss targets I need to
know.  If you don’t think something is going to work, I need to
know.  This has to be a no bullshit operation.  You are all being
well compensated for this work so I expect you to work long hours and not
complain about it.  We have to trust each other and we have to trust our
hosts.  They may do things differently to us but we are their guests and
we need their cooperation, so let’s not rub anyone up the wrong way.”

Another group
of stragglers arrived.  Lund looked at them.  “Helios, above all
else,” she said, “is an engineering company.  As engineers we demand
precision.  When I say the meeting starts at 08:15 I expect you to be
there at 08:15.”  She fixed a stare at one of the latecomers.  “What
do you expect?”

The woman
froze, unsure of how to respond.  “I was in bed, Dr Lund,” she offered
hopefully.

“I gave you
fifteen minutes’ notice,” said Lund.  “Don’t be late again.”  She
turned back to the group.

“I’ve sent
you all detailed work schedules.  If you can see any problems bring them
to me immediately.  Let your teams know what’s expected of them. 
Propulsion and Logistics stay behind.  The rest of you get to work.”

On 19 April
2241 by Earth’s Gregorian calendar the hundred thousandth human being to have
taken breath on Mars was born.  St. Joseph’s welcomed the little girl not
long after midnight.  Her mother was a software engineer at Venkdt. 
Her father worked there in one of the warehouses.

Charles
Venkdt had had an app custom built for his comdev with a data feed from St.
Joseph’s.  The app had a special dispensation to access sound, even after
10:00 at night when Venkdt usually preferred not to be disturbed.  Shortly
before 00:40 Martian time he was woken by from a deep and dreamless
sleep.  He grabbed the comdev from his bedside table and looked at
it.  At first he was too dozy to think about what he saw.  As he
reached for his glasses his head cleared enough that he remembered the app
could disturb his sleep.  He excitedly anticipated what he was going to
see once he had his glasses on.  He read the message twice and half
chuckled, half grunted to himself.  He thought about phoning Christina,
but realised she would not thank him for it at that time of night.

He lay back
down on the bed.  He could feel history starting to move, like a freight
train pulling out from a station - slowly, deliberately and
unstoppable.

No one knew
it yet but tomorrow he would kick a pebble from the mountain top that would
spin and grow as it tumbled down the mountainside, eventually gaining enough
material and speed and momentum that the roar from its sheer weight and heft
would be heard clear across the solar system.

That was for
tomorrow.  He’d had the speech planned out for months, years in rough
outline maybe, all he had to do tomorrow was deliver it.  He rolled over
in his bed and thought about it.  Like a kid the night before Christmas,
he had trouble getting back to sleep.

Christina had
not been long out of the shower when she took the call from her father.

“I’m making
my speech later today,” he said.

Lost in the
day-today of getting ready for work Christina didn’t follow him. 
“What speech?” she said.

“I’m going to
announce the plebiscite, live on my stream, later today.”

“Okay. 
What does that mean?”

“Well, it
means there might be some media interest, or some other fallout.  It might
pass without comment for all I know.  But I’m very excited and I wanted to
share it with you.”

Christina
stopped.  “You know I don’t think this is a good idea, don’t you?  I
guess I hope it goes well if it’s what you want.”

“It’ll be at
four this afternoon, on my stream.  I’ll try to get
Marsnet
to restream it too.”

“That’s
great, Dad.  Have a great day.”

“I will,
sugar.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Venkdt
trawled through his comdev to bring up the speech.  He made some minor
alterations then tried to get through to
Marsnet
.

Venkdt
arrived at his office early.  He could feel great moment in the day and he
wanted to relish every minute of it.  He had been at his desk for an hour
or so, though it didn’t feel half that long, when his PA appeared at the door.

“I thought I
could hear you in here,” she said.

Venkdt didn’t
look up from his terminal.  “I have a busy day.  Thought I’d get in
early.”

“This came,”
the PA said, striding toward his desk and placing an envelope upon it. 
“Is there anything you need?”

Venkdt
glancingly
noticed the
envelope whilst looking up at the PA.  “Yes,” he said.  “Can you
clear the whole day for me?  I don’t think there was much booked in, but I
need the whole day.  Something’s come up.  And could you get someone
from IT to bring one of those super-high resolution cameras by for this
afternoon?”

“Yes,” said
the PA.  “Clear the diary, arrange a camera.”

She looked at
Venkdt, hoping for an explanation.  He obliged.

“I’m making
an announcement this afternoon.  On my stream.  It’s quite important,
so I want it to look as good as possible.  And I need the day to sort a
few things out for it.”

“I see,” said
the PA, though she didn’t see.

“I’ll get on
to IT right away.  Don’t forget that letter.  It was hand delivered
by courier so I think it’s important or legal or something.”  She left.

Venkdt spent
a few seconds finishing up what he was doing at the terminal before he picked
up the letter.  He was still reading from his terminal screen as he tore
the envelope open.

The letter
was headed ‘
Strich
,
Oatridge
and Phillips’.  He was familiar with them.  They were the première
law firm on Mars.  He had recently met with all three senior partners in
lieu of Jack Karjalainen.  His eye fell to the bottom of the letter, where
he saw the words ‘on behalf of
Hjälp
Teknik
Inc
’.  He half knew
what to expect as he moved to the top of the page and started reading.

The letter
was written in legalese and fundamentally didn’t say anything.  It
expressed Jack Karjalainen’s great displeasure and worry about
Venkdt’s
proposed breakup.  It alluded to various
legal remedies that
Hjälp
Teknik
may be forced to use if some vaguely defined events came to pass.  It was
bluster, piss and vinegar designed primarily to say ‘we are annoyed with you
and we have lawyers’ and not much else.  Venkdt felt disappointed. 
He cast the letter aside.  He knew that the founding of the newly
independent Mars would ruffle feathers and make enemies here and there. 
He was disappointed that the first enemy was someone so close by and someone so
like himself, a captain of industry creating wealth on the new frontier. 
The letter also reminded him of the sad likelihood that Jack Karjalainen would
not live to see the independent Mars.

Venkdt spent
the rest of the morning working on emails.  He would send them immediately
he had finished his broadcast.  He knew there would be some people who
needed assurances, details and other calming words.  He had been thinking
about this project and this day for many years.  He had worked it all out
in very fine detail and he had masses of documentation regarding the
constitution, the legal aspects, the economic impact and even the military
angle, which was negligible.  If anyone had any qualms or questions he had
answers for them, oil to pour on the troubled waters of their minds.

He worked the
rest of the morning in his office and took lunch on his own in an ante-room. 
After lunch he had a long snooze, not waking until after three.  He had a
few minutes to go over the speech one last time.

Charles
Venkdt’s
personal stream was not, by any stretch of the
imagination, oversubscribed.  A good deal of his workforce were
subscribers and there was a smattering of business and finance
journalist.  Some old school friends and long forgotten acquaintances made
up the rest of the numbers.  He had sent instructions to all his workers
that they should tune in to the stream at 16:00.  All managers were aware
of this and where possible the stream was to be shown on the biggest screens
available.  Venkdt had also managed to get
Marsnet
to do a live restream of the announcement. 
Marsnet
was one of the biggest information aggregators on Mars, the nearest thing it
had to network television.

At 16:00
Venkdt sat in front of the camera he had ordered and made his speech.

“People of
Mars,” he began.  “At a little after midnight this morning St Joseph’s
Hospital right here in Central Marineris witnessed the birth of the hundred
thousandth human inhabitant of Mars.  I believe this to have been a
milestone in the founding of this great planet of ours.  My forefathers
and many of yours came to this seemingly barren planet with hope for a better
future, and the strength and conviction to build that future.  We follow
today in their footsteps, and where they broke rocks and built basic homes and
workplaces, we today need to break from the traditional hierarchy and build
institutions and cultures that will see a strong Mars grow into everything it
can be.  To that end, I will be putting a plebiscite to you, the people of
Mars, asking for your consent in the great adventure of building a new and
independent planet.  The plebiscite will make a simple statement; ‘I
believe that Mars should pursue a course independent of the USAN, with an
independent financial apparatus, judiciary,
legislature
and executive’.  Voters will be asked simply if they concur with that
statement, ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  If the voters return ‘yes’, with a majority of
more than two thirds, and with a turnout of more than eighty percent, I have a
proposed constitution for an independent Mars - available for
perusal - that we could implement in less than sixty
days.  The constitution allows for free and open elections to a
senate.  The very first matter of business for that senate would be to
debate the constitution, and amend it accordingly.”

He paused
before carrying on.

“An
independent Mars would have its own courts, its own laws, its own banks and it
would represent itself democratically.  We would have our own police
force - I would personally donate officers from Venkdt Security
to found this - and we would have our own military, as small as
that might need to be.

“I understand
that many of you will see this proposal as tantamount to treason or otherwise
illegal.  Let me assure you that if you vote ‘no’ your voices will be
heard.  If we arrive at a state of independence we will bear you no
grudge.  Our church will be a broad one.  If any of you feel strongly
that you cannot be a part of our new world we will do our utmost to help you
resettle, if necessary, or to otherwise accommodate your exceptionalism. 
It is my hope that you will vote ‘yes’ on
election day
,
and that the changing of Mars’ status will happen smoothly and with very little
effect on the day-to-day.  Should a ‘yes’ majority not be
achieved I would, of course, resign my position and submit myself to the mercy
of the courts in the USAN.

“The
plebiscite will take place in six weeks’ time.  There will be ample chance
to debate the pros and cons of the issue and I hope we will have a lively and
well-informed debate.  I, of course, will be urging you all to vote
‘yes’.

“This will be
a crucial moment in the history of our planet and I put my trust in you, the
people of Mars, to make the right decision.

“Finally, I
would like to say that what I am proposing is not a radical departure from the
lifestyle and culture that we enjoy now, but more of a reshaping of the
underlying structure of our society here on this planet better to suit our
development into the future.  I would liken my proposal to something like
a demerger.  We would continue from much the same place we are now, but
with ownership of our destiny.  Thank you.”

Venkdt Mars
Corp retained the services of Christina Venkdt to oversee the organisation of
the plebiscite.  With a relatively small Martian population it wasn’t a
particularly complicated task, but it had to be seen as being fair and
transparent.  There was an open system for electronic elections that had
been used for many years on Earth.  Christina thought they would go with
the same system and brought in Kostovich to take care of that end of
things.  Voter registration would be a little more complex; she had a
small team for that.  They would individually contact every person on Mars
and have them register to vote or otherwise record their objections. 
Venkdt’s
initial proposal had called for a minimum eighty
percent turnout.  It was likely that some at the more extreme end of the
‘no’ camp, who were infuriated by what they saw as the illegitimacy of the
plebiscite, would refuse to even register.  Christina knew that it was
therefore essential that registration refusals were kept to a bare minimum or
the plebiscite would be lost before it had even been run.  Working on the
assumption that most Venkdt employees would go along with
Venkdt’s
plebiscite, and that most objectors would come from the
Hjälp
Teknik
camp, gave them a probable nine to one ratio
to start with.  That meant that maximising the final ten percent of
registrations was crucial to the success of the plebiscite.

Registration
went well, far better than expected.  To most people, it seemed, a
plebiscite was the most reasonable thing in the world.  The fact that
Venkdt had no legitimate right to call a plebiscite, and that he was running it
with no legal basis whatsoever, seemed of no import to most people.  They
seemed to see the plebiscite for what it was; a simple show of hands, a
question innocently asked of the Martian populace - where did
they see their future going?  Venkdt had been smart enough to figure that
from the off.  To a legal mind it seemed crazy and against all
reason.  To the man or woman on the street it seemed like a reasonable
question, and as such perfectly reasonable to ask it.  Following from that
logic it seemed perfectly reasonable to answer it.