The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (30 page)

“Barracks B-One is clear and locked down,” Thomas
focuses on progress. “Starting B-Two.”

“We’ve got sentries out and smoke in Medical B,”
Sergeant Jones reports.

“Same on C-Deck,” Sergeant Riker adds to it.

“We’ve got the Med elevators locked down on D and E,”
Lieutenant Bodicker assures. “Doesn’t look like they made it down
this far. We’ll keep that gate shut.”

“Still, we’re chasing them in two directions on four
separate decks,” Matthew considers sourly. “All without any sign
they’re communicating with each other. Either they rehearsed the
hell out of this or they’ve had lots of practice. Hard not to
appreciate these fuckers.”

“Tell that to Price and Scher,” Halley comes on.
“I’ve got them stabilized, but they’ll be down healing some nasty
penetration wounds for the next few weeks. The bastards load their
explosives with some kind of flechettes that can cut through the
soft joint-gaps in our suits.”

“How’s your hospital?” I ask her.

“Still not cleared, so I’m using one of the labs they
didn’t wreck. But I’ve seen the mess on feed: I’m just glad we had
the warning to clear out the essential gear before we got hit.”

“Barracks B-Two is clear and locked down,” Thomas
updates us. “Still no sign of Schrader or Wei. Had to stop Martinez
from going after them.”

“They have to know they can’t get past us,” Rios
considers.

“Which means they’ll need to distract us or lever
us,” I calculate.

“Colonel Ram, this is Tru. I’m going to move my
people in to protect Atmosphere and Water. You’re spread thin and
this is all the home we’ve got.”

“Labeau, Bodicker: crack the East Section arsenals
and issue our volunteers small arms and Field Links,” I order.
Matthew raises an eyebrow at me, but doesn’t seem in the mood to
argue.

“Tru, tell your people to watch for any attempts to
cut through from Medical,” I give her. “And watch the ductwork—they
can get through some impressively tight spaces.”

“We’re on it, Colonel. And thank you.”

“You were planning on informing us of this?” I hear a
familiar voice buzz through the Ops walls. The heavy floor hatch
shimmers and two blue ETE suits come rising through it like ghosts
out of a grave.

“We were trying to keep you both out of the line of
fire,” I explain evenly, ignoring the breach. “Similar individuals
attempted to force entry into your Station.”

“We know,” Paul says it before Simon can. “The
Council contacted us.”

“Then you know what they appear to be after.”

“They have no hope of getting away with anything of
value,” Simon insists.

“These guys are pretty impressive,” Matthew tells
him. “I wouldn’t be assuming if I were you.”

“This is an ETE matter, Colonel,” Simon continues,
ignoring Matthew’s warning.

“You should let us go in,” Paul softens it. “None of
your people need be harmed on our account. Please.”

“Barracks B-Three is clear,” Thomas reports, sounding
tense. “We can’t access Barracks Four without moving into the
sealed corridors. Schrader and Wei still haven’t checked in.”

There’s a commotion on the Link. C-Deck Medical. Very
little can be seen on-screen with all the smoke, but one of the
feeds gets dragged back out into the less-hazy corridors, face-up
at the ceiling.

“Medical!” It’s Sergeant Riker. “I have a man down!
Some kind of throwing blade stuck between the shoulder and chest
plates.”

We get feed of the injured trooper as his fellows try
to pack and stabilize where a black metal flat spike protrudes
between the laminate sections at the shoulder joint. MAI still has
no targets on motion sensors.

“Colonel,
please
,” Paul repeats.

“With us backing you,” I insist. Paul nods his
agreement. Simon doesn’t say a word.

We watch on video as the smoke is suddenly cleared
from both B and C Medical as if by some strong wind. This reveals
two of our intruders: they’re in C-Deck Iso, trying to make
themselves an exit using ultrasonic tools to pop the welds on the
bulkhead into Atmosphere (whether for mayhem or just a handy escape
will remain up for debate, thanks to their timely
interruption).

“Looking for me?” Simon’s voice comes out of the wall
they’re breaking into, just before the metal shimmers and his
helmeted sealsuit comes head-and-shoulders through it. Before the
intruders can drop their tools and reach for their weapons, Simon
grabs one of them by the left wrist and pulls, dragging him into
the wall. On the monitors, I can hear the man cry out under his
facemask: Simon has trapped the man’s hand in the bulkhead. Then
Simon slides the rest of the way through into the room, pulling one
of his Rods from his belt.

Before anything else can happen, I see the trapped
man do the unthinkable: Without hesitating, his free hand draws his
short sword from his back, and with one merciless stroke severs his
own arm just above the wrist. He falls back away from the wall,
spraying it with his blood as Simon freezes. Then his red-camo
uniform does something just as unexpected: some kind of cable
system in his sleeve spins down tight on the amputation, and
there’s a bright flash across the stump that leaves the open wound
charred and smoking.

“Fucker’s suit is rigged to expect dismemberment,”
Matthew appraises in incredulous awe. “Son of a…”

I hear Simon gasp—the man he’s just had a part in
maiming has gone on the offensive, driving his blade into Simon’s
chest. Simon staggers as the weapon spears through him, then he
thrusts his Rod into the solar plexus of his one-handed attacker,
grunts something I can’t hear, and the other man flies back like a
rag doll hit by a baseball bat. His body slams the opposite
bulkhead as his compatriot dives out of the way, and I can hear
bones breaking.

The other man is already firing, armed with a
fast-cycle pistol as Riker’s HA suits blow in the hatches
(something else for Halley to be upset about) and take the room.
Simon—sitting on the floor clutching his chest wound with one
hand—now has one of his Sphere’s in hand, projecting a shield to
block the worst of it. But without pausing, the second man tosses a
handful small objects at them that quickly prove to be grenades. I
hear at least one of Rikers’ squad curse as nano-shrapnel finds
gaps between the plates in their armor. The enemy uses the chaos of
the blasts to try to charge straight through the armor line,
discarding his apparently empty pistol and going for his own
sword.

He’s fast: I watch him leap and weave, hacking at HA
plate, which his blade actually seems to partially penetrate, and
at least one ICW gets cut almost through trying to block the
powerful chopping attacks. Riker’s troopers lose patience, and I
watch ICW fire tear into the masked swordsman. Still, he tries to
keep coming. A final ICW blast puts him down, spraying him all over
the bulkheads—it’s Riker herself who puts an end to it.

The other man isn’t moving, a heap on the deck.

“Pull back just in case the fucker is wired to blow,”
Matthew orders, recalling what they set for us in the Labs. “Make
sure the other one isn’t going anywhere. Get your wounded to
Medical.”

Paul comes down through the ceiling from where he’d
cleared B-Deck and immediately sets his tools to making things
easier for us: He dissolves everything the two intruders are
wearing. But that reveals ragged bloody gunshot trauma on the one
body and clearly broken limbs (and one severed and burned) on the
other. I can’t see his reaction with his mask down, but he freezes
for a few seconds before seeing to his brother.

Simon puts away his own tools and sits back against
the wall, looking like he’s having a hard time breathing. I have
MAI zoom close on his chest wound and watch his nanites resealing
his torn suit.

“That was unpleasant…” I finally hear him groan.

The sword that pierced his chest is on the deck at
his feet. I can see his blood rapidly dry on the blade and turn to
dust.

“Two down,” I hear Matthew observe coolly.

“Two to go,” I answer him.

“Sit-Rep?” I ask Lieutenant Thomas for an update. On
my screens, I see squads of armor on each hatch into B-West.

“No change. Still quiet,” she answers from behind her
gun. I still have eight personnel locked down in that section,
though apparently safe, and the two—Schrader and Wei—still
unaccounted for. On the feed, I see Paul and Simon come up behind
her troopers. Simon looks like he’s still moving with some
difficulty. They divide and each take one of the main access
hatches, drawing their tools, then nodding their helmets to let us
know they’re ready.

“Open it,” I order. Thomas and her Platoon SFC
Masters each take a hatch and cycle the manual locks, shove them
open and get ready to fire. Paul and Simon use their Spheres to
clear the smoke, pushing it down the corridors, which form a large
U-shape. (The three large Barracks are inside the U; the smaller
Barracks, quarters, Heads and armory locker are on the outside,
butted up against the solid bunker wall. There’s no way out except
through the corridor hatches or big Barracks—even any wall they
could cut through would drop them into the midst of our guns. The
plumbing trunks in the two Heads are even narrower than the lab
vents, but we have guns on them above and below just in case.)

MAI locks onto Schrader’s and Wei’s tags just as
Thomas gets eyes on a body at the far bend of the south corridor.
It’s Sergeant Schrader, face-down in a pool of blood.

Wei reads as inside the southwest Head. The sentry
cameras are offline, and MAI reads no motion (which means they know
to stand still) and no heat but Wei’s (which means they’re still
masked from our sensors).

The remaining two may or may not have monitored the
fate of their fellows, but if they were expecting another
diversion, when it doesn’t come they’ll know they can’t get through
us, at least not without our allowing it, and that means they need
leverage.

I patch into MAI’s PA feed.

“This is Colonel Ram, commanding officer of this
installation. I would like to resolve this without further
violence.”

There is no reply for several moments. I repeat my
offer. Again, I get silence.

“Stubborn? Or just antisocial?” Matthew wonders.

“So far our new friends have been exclusively
Japanese,” I remind him, now that we’ve confirmed the ethnicity of
the two down in Medical-C.

“Shinkyo?” Matthew considers. “Our invisible
colony?”

“Old-School Japanese corporate. And this reminds me
of an old negotiating trick—military strategy applied to business:
You let the opposition put their offer out, and then just sit
quietly like they didn’t say anything. The other guy gets nervous
and keeps talking, puts all his cards on the table while you reveal
nothing. May even start sweetening the deal just to get a
response.”

“So what’s the counter-play?”

“The one who speaks first has already given up
something,” I tell him. “Let them know the offer isn’t a given,
that it’s time limited, and you’ve got options. Leave them
something sweet, and politely withdraw.”

“Draw them out?”

I nod, and go back to the PA:

“Given your demonstrated efficiency in killing, I
have no reason to believe you have a live hostage. You have no
exit. I can simply seal that section and sterilize it with
incendiaries.”

After a few seconds, the sentry cameras in the Head
come back up, showing us Wei in the small shower, bound hand and
foot and gagged, but still visibly breathing. Our invaders cannot
be seen. The cameras go dark again almost immediately.

“Proof of life?” Matthew assesses.

There is a muffled cry of pain, and a few seconds
later something very small is tossed out through the Head hatchway
and into the corridor. MAI zooms in to show us a bloody, severed
fingertip.

“
Listen to me!
” I suddenly hear Paul’s voice
shouting over the PA. “You cannot achieve your objective! Our
nanites are programmed to break down immediately upon losing
contact with their living host. They
cannot
be extracted, no
matter how advanced your containment technology is!”

“Looks like the other guy got nervous,” Matthew
grumbles.

“You will have to take one of us with you,” Paul
continues. “I will exchange myself for your prisoner, and ensure
you a safe exit to the surface. No one else need get hurt.”

There’s no reply, but at least there’s no further
bloodshed.

At the far end of the corridor I see Paul push his
way through the H-A’s covering the section hatch. He stops just
inside the corridor, folds away his helmet and waits. I see him
glance up at the sentry camera and give the slightest smile. Then
he unbuckles his “tool belt” and passes it back to Lieutenant
Thomas. He raises his hands and does a slow turn to show that he is
indeed disarmed, and starts walking slowly down the corridor toward
the Head.

I see him pause over Schrader’s body for a few tense
seconds before proceeding, then stops at the hatchway, making eye
contact with someone inside. Then he looks back in Thomas’
direction.

“Clear the corridor, please! I will go with them of
my own accord—no one else will be harmed because of me. Your
soldier is still alive, but needs medical attention. The intruders
have already acquired fresh breather gear—it looks like we are
ready to be going. Please do not interfere.”

I give Thomas the order to withdraw, clearing the
corridors all the way back to the nearest stairwell, and tell Rios
to open a path on A-Deck back out to Airlock One.

“All the way out,” I clarify. “I don’t want them
seeing anymore guns. Thomas: once they’re clear, send a team in to
secure Specialist Wei and Sergeant Schrader, but be alert for more
booby-traps.”