Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (50 page)

“As you know by now, we lost
Ephialtes
this morning, shortly after four o’clock.  As of this time we know nothing
of her fate, but it’s safe to assume a catastrophic failure and associated loss
of life.  Our best hope is that she was struck by an electromagnetic
pulse.  If that is the case there is some hope there may be
survivors.  But if she was struck by a nuclear weapon then we would have
to accept that all is lost.

“Whichever it turns out to be we no
longer have strike capability in the Martian theatre.  We have no prospect
of such capability for many, many years to come.  The
Aloadae
each
took four years to build.  Both are now gone.  Even if we started
building this very day we can’t put another offensive vessel in that vicinity
for nearly half a decade.”  Andrews looked down at her papers as she
finished speaking.

“What do we do now?” said Cortes.

Something pushed Farrell to try to
fill the silence.  “We’re waiting for some more intelligence to come
in.  We’re monitoring Martian coms to glean what information we can. 
They’re the only source of information we have out there now.”

Cortes looked up and languorously
replied.  “That’s waiting.  What do we
do
?”

This time no one stepped into the
breach.  The silence remained unabated.

“I take it there’s nothing we can do,
is that right?” said Cortes.

Once again Farrell was the only one brave
enough, or stupid enough, to get involved.

“We’re still working on the
diplomatic channels -”

Cortes slammed a fist down onto the
table.  “Diplomacy is nothing!  They’ve just stolen our planet! 
We’re not going to be able to talk them into giving it back!”

He looked at Andrews. 
“Defence.  What do you have?  You had the two most powerful war
machines ever built.  Where are they now?  What use are they
now?  How did that happen?”

“Mr President, I’m sure you -”

Cortes waved her away.  “I don’t
want explanations.  Or excuses.  I want us to be able to do what we
say we are going to do.  When we say, ‘We will take back what is ours,’ we
have to follow through on that.  We have to make it so.  You know
why?  Because our lives depend on it.  That’s right, our very
lives.  If people see, if the world sees that we are weak, they will
destroy us.  Our enemies will destroy us.  You people,” he pointed a
finger around the table, “have failed in your duty to protect this
country.  You have failed your offices and you have failed
yourselves.  Now you have to live with the consequences, and God help us
all.”  He stood up and left the room.

At 08:10
Andrews was put through to Cortes.  On the video link she could clearly
see the two flags either side of him.  He was seated at his desk in the
New Oval Office.

“Mr
President, Martian news sources are saying that
Ephialtes
is in orbit
around the planet.  She’s electronically disabled and the Martians are
going to attempt a rescue.”

“Are the
sources reliable?”

“They are,
sir.  Charles Venkdt made a live stream not yet an hour ago announcing a
rescue mission.”

“We’re
relying on intelligence from Charles Venkdt now?  Can you see what’s wrong
with this picture?”

“I know this
is far from ideal, sir, but it’s all we have.  And it looks like good news
about the crew.”

“How is it
good?” barked Cortes.  “They may as well be dead for all the good they
will do us now.  They’ll be paraded on Martian streams and we’ll look even
more impotent than we do already.”

Andrews did not
know what to say.

“Was there
anything else?” said Cortes.

“No, sir,”
said Andrews, deflated.  “I thought you’d be pleased to hear that the crew
are okay.”

“Yeah? 
Well I’m not.  I don’t give a shit about the crew.  I care about my
ship, which is now useless, and I care about my deuterium, which I cannot now
retrieve, and I care about the reputation of this country, which is now in
tatters.  Put out a press release: ‘The president is relieved to hear that
the crew of
Ephialtes
appears to be unharmed, and hopes and prays for
their safe passage home.’  But know this, and remember it.  I do not
give a shit.  As far as I’m concerned you’ve all let me and this country
down.  They did not prosecute the mission to the full extent of their capability,
and now they’re paying the price.  They should be left in that tin can to
rot.  It’s what they deserve.”

White ordered
a burger and fries with a cola, though he did not feel like eating.

“Was this our
guy?” he said.  “Please don’t tell me it was.”

Sherman put a
fry in his mouth and chewed on it.  “It wasn’t our guy,” he said.

“You’re sure
of that?”

Sherman
shrugged.  “Can’t be sure of anything,” he said, “but I’d say this was
nothing to do with our guy.  They said on the streams it was a missile
attack.  That’s what it looks like to me.  You must have access to
better intelligence than I do.  What are they saying?”

“They’re
saying diddly-squat.  The information they have is coming from the
streams, same as everyone else’s.”

“Then it
looks like a missile attack,” said Sherman, “just like they’re saying.”

White watched
Sherman eat.  “So what about our guy now?  They’re saying there are
survivors.  They’re going to try to pick them up.  Where does that
leave our guy?”

Sherman
finished his mouthful before he replied.  “At the moment, I guess, that
leaves our guy floating around the planet with the rest of them.”

“But what
happens when they get picked up?” said White.  “What’s he going to do
then?  Any more tricks up his sleeve?  A suicide vest for the rescue
craft, maybe?  Jesus.  You have to call him off.  We have to put
an end to this operation right now.  Cortes was pissed off when
Otus
went down.  He’s absolutely apoplectic
now.  If he gets even a hint of this thing there’s no telling what he
might do.  You have to call our guy off, understand?  You have to put
an end to it.”

Sherman had
just taken a large bite of burger which he chewed at a leisurely pace.  He
could see White’s anger rising and it amused him to watch him trying not to
show it.  To add to his fun he popped a few more fries in his mouth. 
Presently, he got around to answering.  “At the moment there’s nothing we
can do.  He or she is there on that ship and there is no electricity or
electronics of any kind whatsoever.  The ship has gone dark so our contact
has gone dark.  We couldn’t contact him if we wanted to, nor him us. 
That’s just the way it is.”

“Well, when
can you contact him?” said White, unable now to control the irritation in his
voice.  “If he does anything, if he makes just one false move, then we’re
all in the shitter.  Cortes is going to look into every little thing that
happened on this mission.  He’s going to turn over every stone and shine a
light into every dark corner, and at the moment he’s got nothing else to occupy
his time.  He’s taken this whole thing personally, and if he finds out
about our involvement that’s it for us.”

“I understand
that,” said Sherman, “but at the moment there’s nothing we can do. 
There’s no communication in or out until they get those people off that
ship.  Maybe if they can get them to a rescue ship, or maybe once they
have them back on the Martian surface and they’re near to communication hubs
with relays back to Earth, maybe then we can get some kind of message
through.  But not before.”

“Jesus!” said
White.  “Do you realise what’s at stake here?”

“I do,” said
Sherman.  “That’s why my ass is covered.  I can walk away from this,
I had an exit strategy right from the beginning.  Did you?”

“Bullshit,”
said White.  “You can be careful, I know that, that’s why I always come to
you.  But no one is invisible.  There’s always some trace left
behind.  You’re in this as deep as I am; deeper, even.  And you can
never walk away.”

The waitress
brought White’s order and placed it on the table.  “Thank you very much,
Ms,” he said, “
that
looks great.”

“Is there
anything else I can get you?” said the waitress.

“No, thank
you again.”

“Enjoy your
meal,” said the waitress as she left.

“That’s
right,” said Sherman.  “Enjoy your meal.  Right now there’s not a
thing we can do, so just relax and forget about it.  Maybe they’re already
dead, who knows?  Maybe the rescue goes wrong and they all die then, how
about that?  Let’s not worry about it until it happens.  In twenty-four
hours, forty-eighty maybe, if our man’s still around he’ll be on the
Martian surface.  We can contact him then if we need to.  But until
then, just eat your food have a great day.”

White looked
at his order.  He knew he was hungry but somehow he didn’t feel like eating.

Zelman was
seated at a table when White arrived at the hotel suite.  There was an
array of magazines in front of her, and it looked like she was working her way
through a puzzle page in one of them.  “Awful news about
Ephialtes
,”
she said.  “It’s been all over the streams.  They’ve hardly been
talking about anything else all day.”

“Yes,” said
White as he walked over and kissed her on the cheek.  “It looks like there
may be survivors.  The Martians are going to try to pick them up,
tomorrow, I think.”

“I hope
they’re okay,” said Zelman.  “It’s awful to think of them up there with no
light, heat or communication, not knowing what’s going to happen to them. 
Just awful.”

“I’m sure
it’s going to be okay,” said White.  “They’ll pick them up, and that will
be that.  It’ll certainly put an end to Cortes’ little venture anyway.”

“How was he
about it all?” said Zelman.

“Not
pleased,” said White.  “He only speaks that one language; threats and
intimidation.  They’ve taken his voice away from him, and now he doesn’t
know what to do.  We’re all just hoping that he doesn’t lash out at us.”

“I’ll bet,”
said Zelman.  “I’m sure he’ll see sense in a day or two.  It was a
ridiculous plan anyway.”

“We all know
that,” said White, “but now it’s ridiculous, expensive and failed.  I
don’t know if this might be even worse than him having gone through with it.”

“Oh come on,”
said Zelman, “you don’t mean that.  I really think this is probably for
the best.  If they can get those people off, and no one got hurt in all of
this, then I think this is probably one of the best outcomes you could have
hoped for.  He’s been forced to put his toys back in the box.  He’ll
have to get round the table with them now, he’s got no other choice.”

“I don’t
know,” said White.  “Maybe this has gone too far the other way. 
There’s nothing for them to discuss now - they have everything
they want.  There’s nothing to negotiate, as far as they’re concerned.”

“It’s
probably for the best,” said Zelman.  “Like you said before, in a few
months’ time we’ll be trading with them and everything will be back to normal.”

“It’s wiped
you out though,” said White.  “Helios stocks have plummeted.  Two
ships lost in as many months - that doesn’t look good for you.”

Zelman
shrugged.  “I guess it means you’ll be needing two new ships to replace
them.  Who’s going to build them, if not us?  The stocks will be back
up in a week or two.  I have the rest of my portfolio, anyway.”

White went to
the bar and poured himself a drink.  “Want one?” he said to Zelman.

“I’m fine,”
she said.  “You go ahead.  You look like you need to relax.”

“Oh boy, do
I,” said White.

The piercing
wail of multiple alarms seemed to exist on its own, a thought before there was
even a consciousness to think it.  The alarms were all that existed. 
As Steiner drifted back from the darkness they seemed to occupy every space in
his head.  Every fourth or fifth second there was a powerful lurch. 
It was these that were shaking him awake.

On realising
he had been born again into a world consisting of nothing more than shrieking
alarms and sudden violent movements Steiner sought to make an impression on
it.  He reached out for the flight stick but it was not there. 
Focusing more now, he realised that the engines were still running, but from
the cracked cockpit window he could see that he was on the ground, save for a
bunny-hop every few seconds.  He realised too that, along with the
sound of the alarms, he could hear the engines screaming as though in
pain.  Reflexively his hand shot toward the manual kill switch for the
engines.  He pressed the button.  Nothing happened.

He was more
awake now and was able to process his thoughts in a more orderly way.  The
kill switch was down, so maybe he could manually isolate the fuel supply. 
As he reached out for the fuel cut-off switch there was another massive
lurch as the ship tried to wrench itself free from the grip that Mars had on
it.  As it crunched back to the ground Steiner reached out again, this
time flipping the switch to the ‘Off’ position.  He waited for the
remaining fuel to run out.  There was another lurch, but this one was
notably half-hearted.  When the ship slumped back to the Martian
surface Steiner heard the engines splutter before finally dying.  The ship
was now laying still on the face of Mars.

The alarms
still wailed.  Steiner released his harness and only then noticed the
blood trickling down his forehead.  He felt the blood with his hand and
looked at it momentarily before wiping it off on his flight suit and proceeding
on his way out of the cockpit.

The ship felt
unfamiliar to him.  It was resting at an odd angle and was in
disarray.  Various items and panels had broken loose and were strewn
about, making the familiar seem new and strange.

His intention
was to get into his command drone.  The drop bays were accessible from
behind the cockpit.  The command drone was in the first bay on the
right.  He figured that the structural integrity of the dropship was
compromised but maybe the drones, or some of them, would still be okay. 
And he absolutely had to get away from those damned alarms.

The hatch to
drop-bay one was jammed.  He went back to the cockpit to retrieve a
crowbar and with some effort he began trying to jimmy the hatch.  As he
was about to give up the hatch moved a little, allowing him to get more
purchase.  Pulling on the locking mechanism with one hand and half-standing,
half-jumping on the crowbar he eventually succeeded in moving the hatch
to a semi-open position.  The ship itself had been mildly warped by
the impact, and the hatches were no longer true.

Guessing
there was enough of an opening to squeeze through, Steiner forced the upper
part of his body into the gap.  Inside it was dark, but enough light
followed behind him that he could make out the shape of the top of his
commander mech, held in the grip of a giant mounting bracket.  He grabbed
at the bracket and pulled his legs through the hatch, swinging them round
beneath himself.  From that position he climbed and slid down to the front
of the mech.

Steiner was
relieved to find that the entry hatch on the mech had not been damaged. 
It opened with a sweetly smooth action as it always had, and he clambered
inside the huge machine.

The start
sequence for the mechs was usually initiated from on board the dropship. 
Steiner had to resort to a manual override.  As he flipped switches and
pressed buttons he felt a rising anxiety that the thing would not start, but
his fear was unfounded.  His HUD came to life and he felt the low rumble
of the internal motors starting up.

He tried to
communicate with the dropship’s internal coms but there was no reply.  He
sent a ‘Start’ command to all of the dropship’s drones but only received
responses from seven of them.  He noted that six of the seven were on his
side of the ship and guessed that the other side had been more severely damage
by the crash-landing.

Using his
mech’s computer system he drew a rectangle in the darkness in front of
him.  He thought this was where the door was, but it was difficult to see
in the half-light.  He set the mech’s laser to follow the outline of
the rectangle and watched as the red beam slowly worked its way around the
shape, taking several minutes.

As he waited
he copied the command to the seven drones he had under his command.  He
checked visuals from each of them and saw that they were all dutifully cutting
their way out of their metal prisons.

As the laser
in Steiner’s bay came to a stop he saw the rectangle of metal fall slightly in
its place.  It slipped to the side and back slightly, but did not fall
completely out.  He commanded the mount to release him, but its grip
remained firm.  Again, he had to turn to a manual override, and his mech
fell to the floor of the bay with a loud clang.  The mech absorbed the
shock of the landing by bending its knees, then did a small sequence of
movements, almost like it was stretching after its long slumber.  It was
calibrating itself to Martian gravity and orienting itself to the space it
found itself in.  Familiar yet unfamiliar, it was the shape of a hangar
bay, but at an angle it had not experienced before.

Steiner
lifted his leg and the corresponding leg of the mech lifted, taking a step
forward.  At the rectangle, the mech punched the metal and suddenly there
was a new, albeit crude, exit.

Steiner
walked out through it onto the surface of Mars.

Outside he
could see the full extent of the damage to the dropship.  It was wedged up
against a small outcrop of rocks, with the front higher than the back. 
The right-hand side was lower too, pressed close to the rocks.  It
looked wrecked.  Steiner was amazed to think that this thing, which had
brought him to the surface, was still in one piece.  Looking at it, it was
hard to see how he could have survived.  He had always been sceptical
about the quality of Helios’ equipment before.  Now he felt humbled.

Looking along
the side of the ship he could see the lasers working on the bay doors.  The
last few remained, cutting their way out.

Presently, as
he watched, the drones punched and kicked their way out of the dropship, just
as Steiner had commanded them to.

The seventh
drone was on the other side of the dropship.  Try as it might, there was no
exit available to it.  The way was barred with solid rock.  Steiner
monitored its video feed and knew there was no hope for it.  He commanded
it to shut down.

Steiner had
data feeds from all his drones available to him in his commander mech, but he
elected to make a visual inspection of his squad.  The scene resembled
parade grounds throughout history, with the drones dutifully lined up and their
superior checking them over.  Steiner was looking for damage, but if he
had said, ‘Your buttons are dirty, drop and give me twenty,’ to one of the
drones it would not have seemed out of place.

One drone was
feeding back data suggesting it was damaged.  Power levels were
inconsistent and the servos in the right foot and thigh were behaving
erratically.  Visual inspection revealed what appeared to be superficial
damage.  Steiner wasn’t sure if there was a physical problem or just a
data issue.  Data seemed unlikely and he didn’t want an unreliable mech on
his mission.  He decided that that mech should stay and guard the
wreckage.  If the Martians found the wreck and gained access to the
dropship’s data systems they could possibly compromise all his inter-drone
coms.  It seemed unlikely, but he decided to leave a mech on guard anyway.

He sent the
remaining mechs in four opposing directions while he took a drink and some
food.  The food was an all-purpose nutrient slurry.  The
commander mech carried enough for two weeks.  Steiner favoured chocolate
flavour.

The mechs
were gathering video data about their location.  Steiner had it patched in
to software which, after a few minutes, worked out where they were on the
Martian surface.  Steiner let the drones wander on for a few minutes more,
in order to confirm their location.  After that, he called them back.

They were
somewhere south of
Baetis
Chasma
,
roughly eight hundred kilometres from the main Martian conurbation of
Marineris.  The mechs’ top walking speed was twenty kilometres an hour,
and maybe they would have to round mountains or avoid craters.  It would
take them around two days to make it to Marineris.  They set off.

Steiner had
had no communication with
Ephialtes
since he had left her only a few
hours earlier.  He assumed that she, like Hayes, had been taken out by
EMPs or possibly nukes.  That left him as the only surviving member of the
mission.  He had trained over and over again to take key Martian
installations and he still had enough firepower to do just that.  The
Martians had very few defences and no military to speak of.  They had
heard news that the Martians had built missile defences and had added those
into their training simulations.  Outwitting missile defences on the
surface of the planet seemed a much more inviting prospect than doing the same
in space where there was, literally, no place to hide.  In the
sims
they had successfully used features of the landscape
and countermeasures to defeat the missile batteries.  He saw no reason why
he wouldn’t be able to do that in reality.  In his mind he was forming a
plan.

With no
direct communications from his mothership, and with Earth out of range for his
mech’s coms, he decided it was his duty to proceed with the mission as he
understood it.  He had been training to capture Martian installations
pertinent to the deuterium trade, and in order to do that he would first have
to render the Martian missile defences harmless.  That was his
mission.  He found added impetus in the fact that, contrary to everything
they had been told on their journey, the Martians had proved to be anything but
pacific.  The attack on
Ephialtes
had been swift and brutal and had
resulted, he supposed, in major loss of life.  His friends, Foley and
Johnson, were among the casualties and he had been right there beside Meades
and Hayes when they had been killed.

The way
Steiner saw it he had no other option.  He was on the surface of what
would have to be considered a hostile planet, even without the presence of
enemy missile bases.  The environment itself was enough to kill him. 
He had a mission, or enough of one to work with, and he had the base, animal
motivation of revenge.  He
had
to attack the Martians.  It
seemed that was the only course of action open to him.