Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (49 page)

Using his
limited controls he skilfully guided the ship down to the surface.  He was
at one kilometre altitude, with an airspeed of six hundred kilometres per hour,
when he started to realise that he had half a chance of making it.  Until
then he had ploughed on, almost automatically, doing everything he could to
make the best of a very bad situation.  He hadn’t really considered the
end point.  Now here he was, close to being in position for a survivable
landing, and he had to figure out what he needed to do to achieve that. 
Not hitting a mountain seemed like a good place to start, so he pulled the nose
around to the right.

For the
landing he could redirect the thrust from two of the engines downward through
ports along the fuselage.  The dropships were VTOL.  The problem was
that he had no control over the level of thrust; half-power was far too
much for a landing.  He would also need to arrest his forward
motion.  He wasn’t sure if hitting the ports with too much power would
damage them, or even if the system would let him abuse it in that way. 
But again, he had no other option open to him.

He used the
stick to tilt the nose forward, bringing the ship as close to the ground as he
could.  He was skimming the surface at a hundred and sixty-six
metres a second, barely a hundred metres above it.  The landscape streaked
past him.

He flipped
the switch, sending the thrust into his VTOL nozzles.  There was an
alarming ‘bang’ sound followed by two crunching scraping noises in quick
succession.  He immediately filed those under ‘Nothing I can do about
that, ignore, move on,’ as he felt the ship leap upwards.  That wasn’t
good; he needed to lose height.  He needed to lose forward momentum too,
so he directed the VTOL nozzles forward.  The negative-G was
immense, and he felt the ship dropping, too.

With his
consoles wrecked Steiner was judging airspeed by eye.  As the ship slowed
to what appeared to be an acceptable speed he directed the nozzles down
again.  This arrested the fall but the ship rapidly rose again.  With
no other options left, Steiner killed the engines.

As the
engines died the dropship reached the top of a parabola.  Its forward
speed now was less than eighty kilometres per hour and as it followed down the
falling edge of its trajectory Steiner felt that fairground feeling in his
stomach, like he was on a roller-coaster.  Four hundred and twenty
thousand tonnes of dropship, deprived now of its upward thrust, was being
greedily sucked down to the Martian surface.

He had no
idea what his altitude reading was but the view from the window suggested the
ground was coming up fast.  In a mild panic as the speed of the onrushing
Martian surface grew ever faster Steiner hit the button to restart the
engines.  He heard the characteristic hiss and whoosh as the engines
started to fire, and he felt their force in argument with the Martian
gravity.  After that, he remembered nothing.

Lund believed
she knew
Ephialtes
inside out.  She had spent a good part of her
working life pouring over its designs and walking through virtual simulations
of its interiors.  She would have said that she could find her way around
it blindfolded.  Now that she actually was trying to traverse the ship in
total blackness it was much more difficult than she might have anticipated.

When all
electronic systems on
Ephialtes
were destroyed the AG went too. 
Lund had nothing to orient herself with visually and didn’t even have the
fundamental knowledge of which way was down.  The
Aloadae
were built
with artificial gravity in mind so they had very definite floors, ceilings and
walls.  Those designations were moot now.

Using her
hands and guided by distant voices Lund pulled herself along.  Quickly she
met some maintenance personnel who had made their way from the hangar deck.

“Where are
you heading?” said one.

“To the
bridge.  There may be some light there and that’s where the commodore is,
I think,” Lund replied.  “You got out of the hangar deck okay?”

“Yes,” a
voice replied from the blackness.  “We had to manually open the emergency
escape hatches.  What happened?”

“EMP strike,
I think,” said Lund.

“Jeez,” came
a reply.  “So what happens now?”

“I don’t
know,” said Lund.  “We get to the bridge and figure something out.” 
She knew there wasn’t really much to figure out.  Without electronics the
ship was nothing, and there was nothing they could do to fix it.  They had
no coms, they had no tools.  Without external help they had no hope
whatsoever.  She let all that go for now.  “Come on, let’s go,” she
said.

As they got
nearer the bridge the voices grew louder.  Lund caught a glimpse of light,
dim but to her miraculous.  As soon as they had that they headed rapidly
towards it.

Floating into
the bridge Lund was immediately greeted by Lucero.

“Lund,” she
said, “what have you got for us?  Anything?”  Lucero knew the
situation was hopeless too but she still clung to the idea that a smart person,
someone like Askel Lund, would be able to come up with some sort of fiendishly
clever plan.  Lund for her part had nothing, but didn’t want to appear
negative in front of the crew.

“First of all
I think we need to make a full assessment of the damage.  Hull integrity
seems good, as far as I can make out.  Were we hit anywhere?”

Lucero shook
her head, “I don’t think so.  The issue is power,” she said, somewhat
redundantly as a good portion of her crew floated about her.  They were
lit by a low grey glow streaming in through the bridge window.  Mars loomed
in front of them, providing most of the light.

“And our
trajectory?”

“Trajectory
should be good.  Speed and vector were adjusted before we were hit. 
We should hit the Martian gravity field and get captured into orbit sometime in
the next few minutes.”

Lund
nodded.  “That’s good.  So we’ll be in range of the Martians?”

“Absolutely,”
said Lucero.  “Any time they want to finish us off they can go right
ahead.  We’re sitting ducks up here, and there’s not a damn thing we can
do about it.”

“They’re not
going to shoot us,” said Lund.  “That’s why they used EMPs.  They
don’t intend to do us any injury.  They have us now how they want us - harmless.”

Lucero
snorted.  “Well, we’d better hope so.”

Lund knew
their only chance of survival was to be rescued by the Martians.  She
hoped that the Martians knew it.  The EMP avoided loss of life, but only
temporarily. 
Ephialtes
would remain hospitable for only a day or
two at most.  With no electrical or electronic systems the oxygen would
become depleted and the temperature would fall rapidly to a point where life
could no longer be supported.  If the Martians had gone out of their way
to avoid killing them - they could have just used their nukes,
after all - then surely they must have considered that. 
Part two of their plan had to be a rescue.  Hadn’t it?

“Can you do
it?  Will you do it?” asked Foveaux.

Bobby
scratched his head.  “Well, I guess I’m happy to give it a go,” he
offered.

Foveaux
frowned.  “Mr Karjalainen, this is way out of our league.  I know I
asked you to start next week but we just don’t have anyone qualified for this
sort of thing.  I’m willing to go myself -”

“No,” said
Venkdt, “you’re far too valuable.”  He looked to Bobby.  “No offence
to you, of course, but Commissioner Foveaux’s role here is essential.  We
really can’t be putting her in this sort of position right now.  There are
many, many vital issues that she has to grapple with right here.”

“Like I
said,” said Bobby, “if you want me to go, I’ll go.”

“We
appreciate that,” said Venkdt, “I just don’t want you to feel obliged.  We
have other personnel capable of carrying out this task.”

“We don’t,”
said Foveaux.  “The only combat trained troops we have are a dozen or so
ex USAN Army from the garrison.  Even if we assume we can trust their
loyalty they’ve never seen a shot fired in anger and all they’ve been doing for
the last two years is polishing their boots and arresting shoplifters. 
This is a rescue mission, and it should be a straightforward one.  But we
don’t know how
Ephialtes’
crew are going to react.  They may be
hostile, they may be resistant,
they
may even be
dead.  If Mr Karjalainen wants to go I say that’s great.  He can pick
a team from the MSS and lead them aboard.  If there’s any resistance he
can either overcome it or retreat.”

“What do you
say to that?” said Venkdt.

“I’m more
than willing to do it,” said Bobby, wondering why his acceptance was creating
this debate.

“Good,” said
Foveaux.  “What do you need?”

“Well, the
spacecraft is all booked and ready to go, right?”

“It is. 
We have the shuttle ready for launch tomorrow.  There should be more than
enough room to bring the
Ephialtes
crew back on it.  That leaves
you with around eight other seats, so you can take a team of eight with
you.  Will that be enough?”

Bobby nodded,
“Eight should be fine.  We have armour and weapons too?  Helmets,
HUDs?  We’ll need to know where we are.  We’ll need infrared and
thermal imaging overlays.”

“Of course,”
said Foveaux.

“Okay,” said
Bobby, “so who are my eight guys?”

“You can come
over to the garrison and make your selection now, if you like.”

Bobby
shrugged.  “You pick them.  You know them.  Sensible people, no
hot-heads.  Okay?”

“Okay,” said
Foveaux.

“Let me know
when you’ve made your selection.  I’ll come over and run through a few
things with them.”

“Okay,” said
Foveaux.  “I’ll speak to Kostovich about the thermal imaging.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,”
said Venkdt.

Bobby turned
to leave.

“Where are
you going now?” said Foveaux.

“Pub,” said
Bobby.

Andrews was a
heavy sleeper and it was unusual for her comdev to ring in the middle of the
night.  In the first few moments of waking she felt confused and
disoriented.  She looked at her clock before rolling over to grab the
comdev.  It was 04:35.

“Andrews,”
she said.

“Secretary
Andrews?” came an unsure voice down the line.

“Of course
it’s Secretary Andrews.  Who else would it be?  What is this?”

Andrews swung
her feet over the side of the bed and stood up.

“My name is
Donaldson, ma’am.”

“Do I know
you?”

“I don’t
think so, ma’am.  I work in your department, in fact I’m over there right
now.  I’m calling to let you know we’ve lost contact with
Ephialtes
.”

Andrews had
clambered into her dressing gown and was making her way downstairs.  “What
do you mean, lost contact?  Is it serious?”

“I think it
probably is, ma’am.  You might want to get over here.”

“Has the
president been informed?”

“No,
ma’am.  We lost contact just over five minutes ago.  It doesn’t look
good.”

“What
happened?”

“They were engaged
in a missile battle.  Logs and recordings from the bridge suggest the
enemy were using EMPs and nukes.  The sudden loss of communication seems
to be consistent with one of those types of weapons being successfully deployed
against them.  The last data we have
shows
three
missiles approaching from the front.  They were going to use a plasma
cannon against them.  After that there’s nothing.”

Andrews
stopped.  “I see,” she said.  “And you’ve had no further
communications since then?”

“None at all,
ma’am.”

“Okay,” said
Andrews, “I’ll be right over.  None of this leaves the building until I
get there, okay?”

The
operations room at the department of defence had a direct link to the USAN
Army’s main ground control centre.  It would be possible to transfer the
whole ground control operation to the operations room if necessary, or to other
similarly equipped centres around the globe.  When Andrews arrived she was
greeted by Donaldson.

“Anything?”
said Andrews.

“Still no
contact,” said Donaldson.  “All indications support the position that
Ephialtes
is lost.”

“There’s no
way this is just a coms failure?  Or power?”

“Unfortunately
not. 
Ephialtes
has multiple redundant power and coms
systems.  The chances of them all failing simultaneously as a result of
anything other than a catastrophic failure of the entire ship are
astronomically small.”

“Shit,” said
Andrews, sitting down.  “What do we do now?”

Donaldson
remained standing.  “There’s very little we can do.  We don’t have
any interplanetary ships capable of reaching Mars any time soon.  There’s
not another launch window for a traditional spacecraft for another twelve
months, and the journey would take a further six.  Our HLV shuttles, even
if they could be converted to the new NFJ engines - and that
remains an open question, by the way - even if they could be
converted they are not suitable for interplanetary missions.  Any
survivors will likely be long dead before we can even arrange a meeting to
discuss the possibilities.”

“What about
the Martians?”

“Excuse me,
ma’am?”

“The
Martians.  What are they saying?”

“I believe we
are monitoring Martian coms, I’ll get a report to you as soon as possible,”
Donaldson improvised.  He resolved to talk with someone in intelligence as
soon as he had finished with Andrews.  He hoped they would have something
he could take back to her.

“What do we
do now?  We can’t just sit here and wait for something to happen. 
What can we do?”

Donaldson
looked awkward.  “There really isn’t anything we can do at this time,” he
said.  “I’ll be preparing the intelligence briefs for the president. 
Will you be informing him of the situation before his seven o’clock meeting?”

Andrews
thought.  “Yes.  I’ll go to the New White House right away.  Put
everything you can in the intelligence report; all the details about the run up
to the loss of contact and everything you can find about what the Martians are
saying.  That’s particularly important.  They have to know more than
we do at the moment - find out what that is.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s very,
very important that we achieve a successful outcome to this,” said
Venkdt.  “There is a huge gulf between shooting a man between the eyes and
simply grabbing his gun to disarm him.  We have to be seen to be doing the
latter.  Wholesale slaughter - unprovoked, at that - would
incur the wrath of the USAN and, I would hope, all decent people here on Mars,
too.  We are not a murderous people.  We are not a barbaric
people.  We have sought only to defend ourselves.

“Of course,”
said Christina.

“The future
of our new state hangs in the balance.  If we fail at this task we fail at
the whole undertaking we set ourselves just a few short months ago; to build a
new country and a new planet and a positive future for all of us.”

“You are
writing this down, right?” said Christina.

“Of course,”
said Venkdt.  “The comdev is picking it up and transcribing it.  I’ll
edit it a bit and go through the whole thing on my stream.  Do you think I
should get that girl to interview me again?  Elspeth?  She was very
good.”

“No, not an
interview this time.  This has to be a statement, it has to look strong
and from the heart.”

“It is! 
Of course it is, I meant every word I just said.  This will be the
defining moment of the whole project.  We simply cannot fail, it would be
unthinkable.  Not to mention those poor people up there.  We can’t
abandon them to their fate.”

“I know,
Dad,” said Christina, “and I know you mean it.  I just mean that we have
to be sure that everyone else knows it too.  Do a piece straight to
camera, just as you said it to me just now, and everyone will know exactly what
you mean and how sincere you are.”

“That’s what
I’m going to do.  I need a few more minutes to get my thoughts in
order.  I’ll do a live stream in an hour or so.”

“Good,” said
Christina.  “Lead with the rescue mission.  Lots of detail, heavy on
the magnanimity but subtle too, and work back from there.  Stress the
parlous situation the survivors are in.  The human interest angle will
grab everyone’s attention.  People will be rooting for them to make it,
and our guys will be the heroes when they rescue them.  It’s a terrific
story, people will lap it up.”

Venkdt looked
at her across the breakfast table.  “You seem so cynical.  There are
people up there in mortal danger, because of decisions that we made.  We
put them in peril, it’s our moral duty to save them.  It’s not a soap or a
reality show.”

Christina was
shocked.  She was reminded of how it felt when her father told her off
when she was a child.  “I don’t
mean .
 . . of
course, I know that, of course.  How could you think otherwise?  I’m
just thinking of how it will play, how we can best use it to our
advantage.  I know they’re real people, and I know they need our help, and
we’re going to give it to them as we should.  All of that goes without
saying.  But you have to think of the other angles too, the bigger
picture.  You’re a politician now, Dad, so politic.”

Venkdt
grunted, “I suppose so.”

Cortes always
woke early.  Most days when he was staying at the New White House he would
take a three or five mile run accompanied by Secret Service agents.  He
would rise around five o’clock and be out running within minutes.

Andrews
pulled through the security gates as the presidential group was leaving the
building.  The Secret Service agents, acutely aware of any irregularities,
immediately bundled him back into the building.  Andrews got out of her
car and went to walk towards them.

“Hold it
right there, ma’am,” said an agent with his palm held upright in front of him. 
He spoke into his lapel mic and half ran towards Andrews, quickly scanning
rooftops as he went.

“I’m Audrey
Andrews, I’m secretary of defence,” said Andrews irritably as he approached.

“It’s a
standard precaution, ma’am,” the agent said.

“Can you
please -”

“Just raise
your arms, ma’am,” the agent said.

Seething,
Andrews raised her arms and the agent patted her down.  “She’s clear,” he
said to his lapel mic.  “It’s Secretary of Defence Andrews, please
advise
.”

Inside the
building Cortes, flanked by two Secret Service agents, overheard the call.

“Andrews?” he
said.  “For
Chrissake
, let’s get out there.”

One of the
agents replied, “Secretary of Defence, please confirm your ID by comdev, POTUS
is coming out to make a visual confirmation.”  By the time he had finished
speaking Cortes was already striding towards Andrews with a coterie of nervous
Secret Service agents about him, making the most of this exciting opportunity
to break the tedium of their morning.

“Andrews,
what is it?” said Cortes.

“It’s bad
news, Mr President.

Cortes’
expression did not change.  “Go on,” he said.

“We’ve lost
Ephialtes
,”
said Andrews.

Cortes
paused.  “Lost,” he said, with no inflection whatsoever.

“Around four
o’clock this morning our time.  She was in a missile battle and suddenly
went dark.  We have to assume an EMP or nuclear strike.”

“Survivors?”

“We don’t
know.”

“Anything we
do know?”

“No,
sir.  All communications, telemetry, transponders stopped at once. 
We have nothing.”

“Nothing,”
said Cortes.  “What are we doing?”

“We’re
monitoring Martian coms.  We have to assume they know more about what
happened than we do.  It’ll be in your intelligence briefing this morning
if we find anything new.”

“Okay,” said
Cortes.  “I want you in the briefing.  Farrell and White too. 
And I want some ideas, and some answers.”

“Yes, Mr
President.”

“I’m late for
my run, get out of here.”

Venkdt honed
his speech to something that worked for all its intended purposes.  It was
accurate in reflecting his humanity and his deeply held belief that it was
Mars’ duty to rescue those aboard
Ephialtes
, despite the potential cost
in Martian lives.  He restated his belief that the new Mars was not
aggressive; that they had been forced to build weapons and found an army simply
to defend themselves against the worst aggressions of the USAN, and that they
had been loath to use them.  That, at great risk to themselves, the
weapons they had used against
Ephialtes
had rendered it useless but had
preserved the lives of its crew, and that now the absolute priority was to
rescue that crew and bring them safely to Mars.

He said that
the people of Mars meant no harm to the people of Earth or the USAN and that
the rescue mission, which would be launching later that day, was proof of
that.  At great risk and cost a small force from the MSS would attempt to
retrieve the crew of
Ephialtes
from certain death aboard their moribund
spacecraft.

He mentioned
his great affection for the USAN and for Venkdt Corporation, and said that he
very much looked forward to working closely with both of them again in the near
future.

He finished
by wishing the rescue team the best of luck with their endeavour.  He, and
the rest of the planet, would be with them every step of the way.

“Great,” said
Christina as Venkdt cut off the camera.  “That was terrific.”

“And every
word of it true,” said Venkdt.  “I just hate to think of those poor people
up there.  And their parents, too.  If you were on that
ship .
 . .”  He shrugged.  “Well,
it just doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“I know,
Dad,” said Christina.  “It’s awful, but they’re alive, and we’re going to
get them back.  A lot of people wouldn’t have done that, you know? 
Most people would have just blown that thing out of the sky.  That’s what
makes you different.  That’s why you’re going to be such a great
president.”

“I just hope
this thing comes off,” said Venkdt.

“It will,”
said Christina.