The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (42 page)

“Thank you, Colonel.” Paul seems suddenly eager to
end the conversation. “I look forward to seeing you again.”

Matthew is still shaking his head after Paul signs
off.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he reminds me I
pretty much demanded the ETE do this very thing.

“They’ll do it with or without us,” I try. “I think
that’s what Paul was trying to tell me—he wants me there to try to
temper what happens.”

“Was that even Paul?” Matthew throws back.

“MAI confirms the transmission and image, sir,” Kastl
reports. “It’s not a fake.”

“He was hurt bad,” Matthew clarifies. “Did they mess
with his brain putting him back together? I know daddy’s never been
too happy with him.”

“He looked like he was performing,” I give him my
read. “His eyes told me something else was up. I’ll need to go to
find out what.”

“And you’re going to bring Granola Girl?” he
protests. “I thought she said she’s never actually been inside
Ninja-ville.”

“She’s made a career of studying them from a
distance,” I remind him. “She has some of their intel files, and
whatever her grandfather told her about the place.”

He jerks his head for me to follow him outside. Lisa
chooses not to join us, perhaps anticipating what Matthew’s got on
his mind. We shut ourselves in the security airlock for privacy,
overriding the sentry feeds.

“Is she really an asset, or is this a chance to give
your Mini-Me a shot at avenging grandma?” he challenges when we’re
effectively alone. “And don’t forget the theory that she’s just
part of some convoluted plan to get a Shinkyo agent inside ETE
Disneyland.”

“I need to take Zauba’a at her word, but that doesn’t
mean we let our guard down,” I assure him. “If she’s some kind of
mole, she won’t show until she’s got her shot.”

“So you’re giving her her shot?”

“I’m hoping we have an asset, not a spy,” I clarify.
“If I’m wrong, I won’t hesitate to deal with it. You know I’m a
fuck that way.”

“It doesn’t mean you have to go yourself. Again. Or
do I have to quote command protocols? You’re the CO. You don’t go
on point.” The tense earnestness in his eyes lets me know that this
is the point he really wanted to make by taking me aside. “You keep
sticking yourself out there, pulling all this first-contact shit,
like you’re Captain Kirk. First the Power Rangers, then the Sand
People, then Janeway’s Psychos, now the Space Ninjas—you just walk
in and smile and expect everybody will love you. You’ve been
lucky
so far.”

“I’m only CO because I was left sitting in the seat
when we woke up,” I remind him. “You or Lisa would be better at
running this place. I fill a chair that was never meant to be
mine.”

“And you’ve got the rep that’s managed to stay fresh
after three generations of campfire stories,” he throws back. “And
yes, it’s opened a few doors. But all the worse for us if you buy
it because one of these post-apocalyptic freakshows wants the rep
of taking you.”

I let the silence of the tight space speak for me for
a few moments, then sink it in:

“You know I have to do this. Half-a-dozen reasons
why. And you two need to back me up so I don’t wind up in something
I can’t get out of.”

“Glad you have such confidence in us,” he gives me,
“but you don’t get to see the nail-biting that happens back here
when you’re out enjoying a field-trip. Best back-up we can give is
always several minutes away—too long if things go really bad. And
it’s bad enough you sleep in the same cell with demon-girl—how the
hell do you expect us to save your jewels if she turns on you in
the field?”

“If Paul’s being straight with us, hopefully I’ll
have the ETE to help you watch my back.”

“You think they could stop her if she decided it was
time to lose another ‘master’? I called Abbas myself—apparently my
name carries enough historic weight to qualify as your ‘trusty
sidekick’ or some crap—glad I at least rate some half-assed respect
in this twisted place. And apparently you neglected to tell him
why
you wanted to know about the whole sleeping with your
bodyguard rule. He got more than a little agitated when I told him
who
was using tradition as an excuse to shack up with
you.”

I don’t answer him for a moment, then shift the
focus: “If she does go off, wouldn’t you rather have it happen
surrounded by the ETE than down here where there’s a thousand
people she can actually kill?”

“You think they can handle her?” he lets me know how
little faith he has in them.

“That’s one thing I need to find out,” I tell him.
“Especially before they try to go up against the Shinkyo.”

“So you’re okay with them going all Bushy on us?”

“I wouldn’t give you the ‘it’s their planet’ crap
even if I thought you’d buy it, Matthew. My reasons are much more
practical: They’re a lot stronger than us—we’re barely hanging on
to our own little corner—and they seem to have their hearts in the
right place, at least for now.”

He shakes his head.

“You and I both know what kind of atrocities come out
of good intentions. And what happens if your friends at the ETE
decide to turn on us in the name of ‘avoiding further
bloodshed’?”

“Then we do know one way to stop them,” I tell him
grimly.

29 September, 2115:

“Your own sense of superiority will be your greatest
vulnerability.”

I let the warning sink in for a few moments. I’m
actually surprised when it goes unchallenged. The fifty sealsuits
sitting at attention in the brightly lit auditorium-sized
underground hall just stare back at me with their uniform lack of
any kind of expression—they might as well have their masks on.
Eye-contact is the only thing that lets me know that they’re
probably listening—otherwise, I could be lecturing a big room full
of mannequins.

“We’ve had a lot of hard experience with this over
the last century-and-a-half,” I continue my point. “Asymmetrical
warfare: a high-tech force confronts a low-tech enemy—the outcome
seems
obvious. After all, the history of warfare has been to
evolve your technology to defeat your opponent’s. Better weapons
equal victory. But true strategy is finding the simplest, least
costly means to defeat a superior threat. That doesn’t necessarily
require greater technology or resources, and the lesson has become
that reliance on those advantages will lead to disaster.”

The fifty suits—five of each of the ten
representative colors of the ETE Stations—continue to be
impressively immobile. If nothing else, they have the discipline of
long years—Paul told me the average age of these “young”
technicians is fifty-five Earth-calendar years. “Time is different
for us,” Paul has said more than once. Apparently it applies to
sitting through long lectures on tactics.

“You’ve been drilling in the use of your tools for
dealing with combative opponents,” I allow them. “I have to say I’m
impressed with what you’ve created—not only in how well you’ve been
able to address various threats, but how well you coordinate in
your teams. Mr. Stilson—Paul—has told me that you’ve been studying
from a substantial library of military tactics and training. I
expect you’ve also been studying your enemies—I know you don’t like
that term, but they see
you
as enemies and will treat you as
such.

“Just remember your enemies have been studying you as
well. Every encounter gives them more intelligence. They have
weapons that can pose a threat even to you, but they are also
extremely intelligent, and—perhaps most telling—they are survivors.
They’ve been living with death and suffering for generations. I
won’t tell you that they do not value life, but they certainly
perceive it differently than you do. Don’t forget that. That said,
let’s get down to business…”

I flash our best estimated graphics of what the
Shinkyo Colony looks like under all that dirt and rock. It fills
the air behind me, and then all of them as one put on their goggled
masks (a very creepy effect), probably to get more detailed feed.
(Their helmets function for tactical coordination in the field like
ours do, but Paul tells me that their version of a Link actually
flashes communications and data real-time into their brains. This
explains why they can’t be heard communicating with each
other.)

On my signal, Paul suddenly shuts off the feeds,
making the whole chamber go dark along with it.
Now
I hear
them squirm in their seats.

“Lesson One: This is what happens when you get too
reliant on your gear and your enemy decides to see what happens
when you lose it. Suddenly you’re blind, deaf, mute, and have no
idea what’s going on. You need to be ready to function when this
happens. If not, you’ll lock up, get lost, get ambushed, or even
wind up firing on your own people by mistake. The aptly named ‘Fog
of War’ is a very deadly reality. Make sure you train for this.
Still, expect it will throw you when it happens.”

Paul turns the feed (and the lights) on again. They
settle back down quickly, but have lost some of their stoicism. I
go back to the map.

“Let’s start with what we know versus what we can
estimate about Shinkyo: We know they had one nuke, and I doubt they
would have fired it in a gambit if it was their only one. We know
they can detect you at range, probably from an energy signature
your live tech emits, so they’ll know when you’re coming. We can
also assume they expect you to respond to their attacks, even if
they’re not monitoring our communications, so they’ll try to
prepare for it.”

I turn to my “co-advisor,” and she takes her cue,
stepping forward.

“From what I know of the Shinkyo, they regularly
employ explosives, so they must be able to produce them in
quantity,” Zauba’a tells them, her own face hidden behind her
demon-mask (she has not taken off her armor since we arrived, not
even to sleep in the comfortable rooms they gave us). “They also
manufacture their own ammunition, which is capable of piercing all
conventional body armor. Their numbers are unknown. The Nomads
estimate the Shinkyo control a no-man’s land of about twenty miles
around the old colony site, and seem to put priority on eliminating
all trespassers. Nomad raiding parties have disappeared entirely in
that region. The few that have managed to return report fleeing
from storms shrapnel, from grenades or from concealed
anti-personnel mines. Those that survive the traps are picked off
by warriors who use the resulting dust and chaos.”

A rough perimeter lights up on our map, but then she
zooms it back on the actual colony.

“They know you can be at least stunned and
disoriented by conventional explosives, especially if you are not
expecting it. They will likely protect their perimeter with
sequential mines, timed to keep you off-balance. However, if they
believe their best weapon against your technology are more nuclear
warheads, they will have placed such devices to protect their
perimeter, shielded from detection. If they have the means, there
will likely be more than one line of them. Do not assume that they
will be weak enough or positioned far enough from the colony to
avoid damaging it—they are willing to sacrifice, especially if they
think it will give them advantage. They may also have one or more
devices deep
inside
their colony as well, to try to take you
with them if they feel they are defeated. The Shinkyo always choose
death over failure, and will eagerly die to kill an enemy.”

She speaks with amazing presence and confidence, but
the edge of controlled rage under her voice is chilling—I wonder
what experiences she’s had against the Shinkyo. (I also wonder if
that’s the way I used to sound.)

“This is assuming they have several warheads,” one of
the Green Team suits criticizes, though her tone is coolly
objective.

“Always assume your enemy has maximum potential,”
Zauba’a counters, her voice icy. But then I see her eyes lock mine.
I give her a slight nod of approval. I think I can see those eyes
smile.

“That said, assume nuclear warheads are not the only
threat to you,” she continues. “They also know that EMP
weakens
you, so they will have considered other ways to
generate it. Beyond that, we know that they have the means to
manufacture nano-materials, so they will be trying to make weapons
that can harm you significantly despite your enhanced ability to
heal.

“I have reviewed the video records of the previous
attacks. It is clear that you are not omniscient, that you can be
taken off guard. The key to success in personal combat as well as
troop engagement is the breaking of the opponent’s balance,
physically or mentally. If you can be thrown off balance, then your
power and training will be worthless.”

“Can you be more specific?” one of the Red Team asks,
sounding like a student in a college lecture.

“Explanation is no substitute for experience,” she
tells him. “I will have to show you. You will have to feel it.”

“We’ll run exercises with you,” I clarify, “give you
a taste of what the Shinkyo may put you through.”

Zauba’a seems satisfied with my solution, and done
with her lecture.

“What can you tell by looking at the colony itself?”
I test them.

“They appear to have facilities for growing food as
well as recycling nutrients,” a Yellow tries. “They also appear to
have significant stores, scattered in numerous locations. They
could withstand a siege.”

“They don’t tap our Feed Lines for resources,” a Blue
suit extrapolates, “so they probably don’t fear what we might
withhold from them.”

“What
doesn’t
the map show us?” I probe.

“The map is weeks old,” a Red tries after a few tense
moments of silence. “Things may have changed. They may have moved
things, anticipating what we’ve seen.”