The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN (45 page)

They prove less adept at blocking projectiles,
despite how much their enhancements improve their speed, senses and
reflexes. Still, they do manage impressively for a people averse to
violence—I have to remind myself they’ve lived a half-century with
their taboos ingrained. But they learn fast (for people who seem to
take their immortal time at other things), and they seem
single-mindedly dedicated to this. Perhaps they’re realizing how
far an improved defense goes in avoiding the need for an extreme
offense.

(I also find myself starting to covet their
technology—having their abilities would make what we’re likely
facing in this new world less bloody. I’m also certain that
Earthside Command will order me to actively seek to obtain it for
tactical reasons, no matter how the rest of the population reacts
to learning of its existence.)

“You still have concerns, Colonel,” Council Blue—Mark
Stilson—confronts me as we watch from a respectful distance while
Zauba’a drills her “students” by hurling torpedoes at them. “Are
the candidates not performing as you had hoped?”

“Just the opposite: I’m very impressed with your
volunteers. But I’m afraid we may still be underestimating how far
the Shinkyo will be willing to go.”

“You think they will take risks more extreme than
booby-trapping their colony with nuclear weapons?” he counters with
a hint of amused incredulity, then tries to be reassuring: “You
have already considered that they may have moved key materials or
personnel, and that they may sacrifice the colony site itself
rather than surrender it if we attempt to occupy it. But we have no
intention of occupying it. We will make that clear at the outset.
We only wish to deter the Shinkyo from making further attacks on
both of our peoples. Our hope is that we may simply disarm
them.”

“Being disarmed by force makes one feel helpless,” I
remind him. “Helpless people tend to be desperate.”

“We would not take away their ability to defend
themselves from other factions,” he insists.

“Only from
you
,” I focus. “We learned this
enough times on Earth: Your professed benevolence will not be
believed by those who have reason to be afraid of you.”

“I get the impression we are not just talking about
the Shinkyo. Or any of the other survivor factions we may need to
intercede with.”

I answer him with a slight nod and a bit of sad
smile.

“Then I expect we will have more lessons to learn,”
he accepts. “I believe the term you use is ‘Winning hearts and
minds’?”

I realize he’s just lumped me in with military minds
in general. I let it slide. (I expect I’ve made more prejudicial
generalizations about him.)

I hear him take a deep, heavy breath.

“Do you really think they may go so far as to blow up
their entire colony?”

“As a last-strike option, I’m sure they would,” I
tell him. “But I’m more concerned that it may be their
first
option: Let you succeed in taking the colony, then sacrifice it to
disable you in large numbers. Or threaten to do so if you don’t
give them what they want.”

I watch him process stoically. He shakes his head,
purses his lips.

“The colony would need to be still convincingly
occupied for such a trap to work,” he tries to deny logically.

“I’m sure it will be.”

“Based on the scans, we estimate over twelve hundred
people, including children, could be living there,” he tries
reason. “How many of their own would they have to leave to bait
such a trap? Hundreds? Not to mention the loss of precious
facilities and resources—it is highly unlikely that they could have
relocated more than a fraction of their numbers and equipment since
you revealed them. The cost of such a tactic would be the
devastation of their entire society. I could understand if they
truly felt they had no other option, that they were sure we would
slaughter or imprison them, or leave them at the mercy of
predators, but to do so simply in hopes of reaping our technology?
What we have can’t possibly be worth
that
much to them.”

“Something I heard from the Nomads,” I let him know
what I’ve been mulling over. “The Shinkyo leader calls himself
Daimyo
. It implies he does not see himself as supreme ruler,
only a local lord that owes allegiance to another—a greater power.
Perhaps they still have some kind of contact with their parent
corporations Earthside. Or maybe they just believe they’re still
serving those masters. The corporations may have given the colony
officers contingency plans before the bombardment to maintain
research and production; or maybe serving that higher cause—however
defunct—is all that’s keeping them going. And imagine what that may
have gotten twisted into over the generations: they may have all
been taught from birth to put this real or imagined corporate
interest above their own lives. If their so-called Daimyo believes
his duty is to benefit his mythical corporate masters, he’d do
whatever is necessary, and his people would likely follow
willingly.”

“We can’t know—in any case—until we get inside the
colony, meet their leadership face-to-face, see what they’ve been
doing,” Stilson returns after giving it a few moments’ thought.
“And we can’t simply go and knock on their door and expect them to
tell us.”

I grin at him. “It’s not out of the question.”

I check in with Matthew at our usual time—1500 hours.
I fully expect what he’ll say when I tell him what I intend to
do.

“How’s life in Disney World?” he begins much like he
has every day for the past nine days. “You’d better be bringing me
back more than just a dumb T-shirt.”

“Coming along,” I start vaguely. “How’s my chair
treating you?”

“Some of their foodstuffs would be nice,” he changes
the subject. “You keep teasing me with your reports on how good
they feed you. You coming back soon, or are you getting too used to
the spa treatment?”

“Probably going out for air soon,” I say as a way to
let him know the Guardians are getting eager to try real-world.
“The kids are coming along with their homework.”

“You were a good instructor, back in the day.” His
tone lets me know that he’s still getting used to the idea of me
being out here, but that he’s coming to terms with it. Either he
realizes how much of a straw-man I am as functioning CO, or he’s
settling into the seat he
should
have had (if the world
hadn’t blown up around us).

“And you were a good CO,” I give him back.

“I wasn’t in charge of shit, even when I
did
outrank you. Everybody knew who was really…”

Kastl cuts him off.

“Incoming! Bearing 245 degrees. Low and fast,
sir.”

“Radiation signature?” Matthew demands urgently.

“Positive,” Kastl tells him after a few tense
seconds.

“Lock it down!” he orders. “Everybody inside now!
Blast protocol. Batteries: auto-intercept—fire at will. Did I
mention how much I hate ninjas?”

“I’ve got Jane up on rounds,” Metzger calls in from
the Aircom tower, reminding us we have an ASV in the air.

“Get him out of there,” Matthew orders. “No time for
a local landing. Burn for Melas Three.”

“Jane to Command,” the ASV calls in, “I’m in easy
intercept.”

“Negative, Lieutenant,” Matthew tells him. “I’m not
risking a ship for these shitheads. Get out of there.”

“MAI has a lock,” Kastl announces. “Batteries firing.
They’re taking evasive, sir. Using the landscape for cover—target
is skimming less than a dozen meters above the surface.”

“Dumbass doesn’t intend to live through this,”
Matthew grumbles. I can’t help but remember the desperate
resiliency of suicide vehicle bombers from an older war.

“Contingencies?” I want to know.

“Oh, yeah…” Matthew purrs.

I get a heads-up graphic showing me the course of the
incoming fighter—it’s reading as one of the light Shinkyo raiders,
only hot with fissionable material. I fully expect it has a live
pilot. But we’d anticipated such an attack (I’m actually surprised
they hadn’t made an aggressive move in so long, but they may have
been occupied with setting up their defenses). I watch the craft
dart into ravines to avoid battery fire, keeping rock in the way of
our guns, weaving to run the heat-seekers we throw at it into
outcroppings. The pilot is impressive.

Unfortunately for him, we’d calculated the best
low-fly runs at the base.

“Zero,” Kastl announces as the ship flies over one of
the “mines” we planted, a shaped-charge capable of killing heavy
armor. MAI blasts a load of near-molten shrapnel up out of the
ground. I can see the little flyer buck and almost lose control as
its hull and wings are likely perforated. “He’s still up,” Kastl
states what we can all see.

“Coming up on the second line,” Matthew anticipates.
But then the ship suddenly throws itself up out of the covering
ravine and makes a wild dive in the direction of the base. MAI
opens up—now I can see through the battery cams as our guns chew up
the little ship. Still, it keeps coming. A heat-seeker takes off
the starboard wing as the pilot jerks left at the last second. The
ship spins and tumbles. It hits the ground and explodes within a
hundred meters of our greenhouse. I can see the shockwave of the
blast crumple the walls of the structure, and pressure vents out as
an icy mist.

But the blast isn’t nuclear.

“Dud?” Matthew wonders as we wait for a secondary
blast that doesn’t come.

“Or delay,” I hear Lisa chime in. “Waiting for us to
come out and check?”

“Maintain lockdown,” Matthew orders, taking her
advice. “Batteries don’t have a good line of fire on the wreck.
Jane, I need you to come back around, get a shot and finish
breaking that thing up. Keep far enough back—assume the thing may
still go nuke.”

“Understood, Colonel,” Jane answers.

“Get me casualty and damage reports,” Matthew tells
Kastl. “Doc Ryder’s gonna be pissed about her garden. Did I mention
I hate ninjas?”

“Having a thought,” I chime in. “Fill you in later,”
I let him know I expect the Shinkyo are listening.

“Convenient they hit us just when you called in,”
Matthew lets me know he’s thinking something similar. “I’ll have a
damage report for you when you check in next. Give the Power
Rangers my regards.”

“We will, of course, help you rebuild your
greenhouse,” Mark Stilson assures me after we sit and review the
video of the attack. I can feel something like honest regret in his
voice. I’m not sure if he’s more upset by the potential loss of
life or the damage to a project that shared their dream of greening
Mars. “We will even provide you some of our engineered crop plants.
It’s the least we can do.”

Paul and Simon—now looking fully recovered from their
“upgrading”—have joined us for a civilized cup of Martian tea in
the soothing setting of one of the Station gardens. I expect
Council Stilson chose the setting because he’d already heard about
the attack (either from monitoring our base or our transmissions)
and wanted to reassure me that one broken greenhouse was not as
crushing a setback as it appeared from our viewpoint.

The garden chamber is the size of a barn, lit as
bright as Earth summer, and filled with lush, green fruit-bearing
plants. I think I recognize what may have once been peppers, beans
and tomatoes. Council Stilson makes a point of picking a small
rust-colored orange, turns it reverently in his gloved fingers, but
(as usual) doesn’t look like he intends to eat it. Then he gestures
and invites Zauba’a and I to feel free to sample. I pick a small
violet “pepper” and bite off the tip. It has a pleasant but not
overwhelming bite. I remember what Matthew said about wanting me to
bring back tastier food. Zauba’a just looks at the plants with her
usual air of detached curiosity, but doesn’t touch anything. (At
least she’s gotten comfortable enough to take off her demon-mask
when not actively drilling the recruits.)

“You think this attack on your base was an honest
attack, or an attempt to spur us to act before we are ready?” Simon
refocuses us on the subject at hand.

“I doubt they would waste a viable nuke on an attack
they knew we’d been preparing to intercept, and that would reap
them no nanotechnology,” I tell him what I think. “They’re more
likely to reserve their functioning weapons for meeting you. Their
ship could have been loaded with waste material, enough to show the
radiation signature of a nuclear warhead—something to get our
attention, scare us. As you said.”

“And they threw away another pilot to deliver it,”
Paul grumbles.

“They always make their feints look as real as
possible,” Simon returns, sounding like he’s been taking my
“lessons” to heart. Then he turns to me. “You called this strategy
‘Moving the Shade?’”

“A feint to see what your opponent’s response will
be, yes,” I confirm. “Timed for when they knew I was calling.”

“What did they expect you would do?” Mark asks.

“They likely had no idea,” I offer. “That’s what made
them nervous enough to kill to find out. They’ve been quiet for a
few weeks, but so have we.”

“Is there a counter-strategy?” Mark’s tone is
academic.

“I’m sure our lack of immediate response has rattled
them,” I try. “It shows we don’t flinch easily, don’t react by
rushing to hit them back.”

“Which they’ll be prepared for,” Paul criticizes.

“We could return the feint, see how they respond,”
Simon considers, sounding disturbingly eager to put his new skills
into action.

“They’ll expect that too, since it’s their own
strategy,” I caution him. “But there
is
a superior strategy,
one harder to counter. We just have to be sure your teams are
ready.”

Zauba’a picks something that looks like an elongated
strawberry, and tastes it cautiously.