The disparate troupe walked through the base, the way in front of them clearing as people who saw them ducked back into doorways until they passed or stared with open hostility at his passing. The silence was broken only by Auroras occasional directions; the Mech pilot fell in next to the guard, expressing her anger by running through an impressive list of every curse she presumably knew in a loud unending litany directed at him without ever once having to repeat herself, while also pointing her gun at his back as they followed him.
After passing through a confusing series of tunnel intersections that all looked exactly the same, leaving him thoroughly lost, they walked through a double set of blast doors and entered a small meeting room occupied by the base commander, the young man who Mikkhael remembered operating the computer array when he first arrived, and the doctor who had helped him a few hours previously. Two other uniformed men whom he had not yet met were already seated on the opposite side of the doctor and computer technician.
The base commander stood next to a faux window displaying the silhouette of a 20th century city skyline he did not recognize. As he turned, his face betrayed the slightest hint of emotion at the uninvited member Mikkhael brought with him. “Have a seat; there is much to discuss. I see you have met my daughter, Eve. I am Commander Ultor; we have not had the chance to meet formally. On my right, you’ve already have met Drogdyn our Chief Technical Officer, and Dr. Hesken. The other two men are responsible for military operations and security within the mountain. Another member will be along shortly.”
Mikkhael studied the expressions of each of the base officers as they were introduced. The lack of distinction between who was responsible for security and who was responsible for military operations was a subtle dig at his newcomer status. However, the slight was unsuccessful as Aurora chimed in via an implant in the back of his ear which of the men was responsible for which role, unbeknownst to the rest of the room. “Thank you, but I will remain standing for the time being. I have not had much opportunity to in a while, as a former Mech pilot I believe you would understand.” Mikkhael said.
The commander showed no surprise at the acknowledgement of his past. “Ah, yes, but as a much older man now I also recognize the value in sitting when presented the opportunity.” To accent the point, he moved to sit in between his advisors making it awkward for Mikkhael to be the only one standing.
Giving him no time to recover, Commander Ultor changed the subject. “The AI you brought with you is rather remarkable and has made herself available to anyone interested, allowing them to ask questions about your presence and objectives here. I should also mention that she is the only reason you are alive right now. While most of the base population received little information, the five of us were able to get some interesting details out of her. I would like to hear from you before I reveal what she said, though.”
At the blatant threat to his physical well-being, Mikkhael could not help but smile. “Beside the fact that if something was to happen to me she would then murder everyone on this base of course…” He paused to let that sink in a minute. “I do not claim to own Aurora so much as you would suspect. We are more like allies. She is an artificial intelligence in every sense of the description. We have many of the same objectives, as she likely stated, but our goals are entirely separate. Her goal is to cripple the PDF’s control over the civilian population, in turn freeing them, and she is already working towards that end. My goal, loosely stated, is to directly engage the PDF in a way that leaves them without the ability to attack and therefore oppress the civilian population.
“For years, we watched the rebellion ebb and flow in its ability to strike back. It was not my way to join up as frontline soldier and attempt to move up the ranks. But, when I found the capability to build a machine that could be as powerful as to maybe turn the tide in your favor, I set out here with that machine completed to search for allies in order to do exactly that. I have a plan in place on how to achieve my goals. If you deny me your help, that will only set me back as long as it will take to find new allies. The plan is based upon a series of actions and not on a timetable which will help its resilience.”
He knew he gave them just enough information to let them feel comfortable with their choice to be forced into helping him. The men and women in the room held no doubts that he was hiding more, but they accepted the farce of the goodwill gesture for what it was.
Drogdyn was the first to respond, quizzing Mikkhael off and on about Aurora’s capabilities as well as how he could help with Starkindler’s systems. Dr. Hesken had obtained the list of ingredients for the stimulant compound from Aurora that Mikkhael used in battle which had been synthesized by Vera back on Earth. They discussed the stimulant’s merits, the extreme addiction that would derive from any kind of repeated use, and most importantly, how exactly the compound would affect him in the form of crippling and eventually lethal side effects. The two military men barely spoke, only interjecting the occasional question when a matter entered their purview.
The rebel commander sat silently, giving nothing away as his underlings peppered Mikkhael and Aurora with questions. The commander folded his hands in front of him on the table, taking everything in. His wise eyes and ears did not miss anything. He let the others ask questions for him, maintaining the stoic pose that in the end would serve to glean more information from Mikkhael than any other stance might have.
After finally exhausting most of the group’s questions, the hiss of the hydraulic doors opening announced the entrance of a late entrant to the inquisition. He instantly knew the man who entered the door was the missing Chief Engineer. He was a big man, broad of shoulders, nearly as tall as Mikkhael. His physical appearance screamed Mechanic; his jumpsuit was covered in patches, dirt, and grime. He was the type of man who could wash his hands for twenty minutes and still ooze grease.
He walked up to Mikkhael and held eye contact, silently taking full measure of him. The silence became uncomfortable, when something suddenly gave and he stuck out his hand. “Chief Engineer Henry Thorsten, my friends call me Henry, you’d best stick with Thorsten. That’s one hell of a machine you brought with you.”
The burly engineer finally released his hand, which throbbed in pain from the vice-like grip, turning to Commander Ultor. “I’ve given her as thorough a once-over as the AI would let me, as well as scanned through the schematics she provided. There is hardly a damn part on her that we can replace, and every single one of those will have to be custom fabricated. Maintenance on that unit is going to be a royal bitch, what little of it that we can do.”
Commander Ultor turned to face Mikkhael, who accepted his cue. “When I landed on Mars, I separated Starkindler from a cargo pod that holds a large amount of replacement parts, armor, munitions, and the equipment needed to fabricate more of all of the above. The combined need for stealth as well as speed temporarily made it necessary to separate myself from my ability to resupply. The next step is to retrieve that pod and return the contents here. Also, let me preempt the discussion of sharing my technology with you. Unfortunately, in order to resist starting an arms race; I cannot, and am entirely unwilling to give you the technology required to fabricate some of Starkindler’s components including the armor, and that is non-negotiable.” Mikkhael crossed his wrists behind his back, feet shoulder length apart in a military parade rest stance, bracing for the inevitable onslaught.
“And should your well-wishing attempts not succeed and the PDF begin to upgrade their machines as well?” Engineer Thorsten asked, his sarcastic tone dripped with bitter accusation.
“There are certain contingencies which we have planned for in advance, and should my ability to destroy the PDF prove lacking, then something as severe as self-destructing might prove necessary.” Mikkhaels lips twisted as if he had just swallowed something incredibly bitter, but he pushed on, the pain of that statement still clearly present. “You also have to understand the majority of materials used on Starkindler are exotic to say the least. The
y are still considered to be theoretical in most labs; my ability to reproduce them is limited. Therefore, sharing their design with you would in effect do you little good. I have come to assist you, not use you.”
“Yes, which leads to the obvious questions of not only how you got your hands on those theoretical materials, but how you expect to single handedly defeat the galaxies greatest army without getting your shiny new toy banged up” Engineer Thorsten drawled.
When no response from Mikkhael proved forthcoming, the air within the room became suddenly stale as individual temperatures rose several degrees.
Commander Ultor raised his hand to signal a change of subject, addressing Mikkhael. “What happens next? You said you have a plan; we need to know what you expect of us before we give our approval.”
Mikkhael nodded. “The next few steps begin with me acquiring my cargo pod and its contents. Then I need to prove Starkindler’s capabilities to you and everyone here so that people can stop questioning our combined capability. After that, I need to pick a fight big enough to stir the hornets’ nest. With your permission, I want to recover my cargo pod tomorrow. The trip will take me nearly a week and I will need some help from your crewmembers with the logistics.”
Commander Ultor signaled his approval. The last few details of the mission were cleared, following which Mikkhael then retreated to his assigned quarters. The meeting that had just taken place was the longest conversation with someone outside of his small circle of friends that he had in at least five years. The ordeal of which left him exhausted and not eager to soon again repeat it.
Mikkhael returned to the same quarters that he had woken up in a few hours previously. The silent female guard was relieved by someone else who kept watch outside his door through the night, for exactly what purpose he still did not know.
Chapter 7 – Trial by Fire
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable”
-- John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
Mikkhael was already half a day out from the Tharsis Bulge, the continent sized plateau with the solar systems tallest volcano sitting on top of it that was his new home. They had been so eager to see him go; they nearly shoved his behemoth Mech armor out the airlock, and would have if it meant he would leave that much sooner. A small locker within the cockpit was crammed full of dried, tasteless, reconstituted provisions and enough water to last weeks. He would die from the lack of taste faster than he would starve.
Back in the readiness hangar before he left, maintenance technicians fitted expendable air tanks on Starkindler’s external hard points, giving him enough oxygen to last for twelve days without a re-breather system. A smaller tank was filled with algae engineered specifically to absorb vast amounts of the Co2 he exhaled and then convert it back into oxygen. The algae would die after a few days of heavy use, but the ability to leave minimal room for oxygen on extended missions was priceless. The algae doubled Starkindler’s internal oxygen supply, giving him a total time he could spend away from the base of sixteen days.
While terraforming efforts had progressed to creating a thin atmosphere out of the vast amounts of Co2 found nearly everywhere on the planet, the oxygen content was still so low and would remain that way for the next two hundred years, requiring supplemental breathing systems outside of human settlements. Oxygen converters were bulky systems that only worked well in large-scale situations, and were only one piece of the very intricate puzzle that made the thin difference between having air to breathe and dying. Not only did mankind continuously find new reasons to fight one another, but from the very moment they set forth on the planet they were fighting for their very survival every single moment, and one slip was all anyone ever got. The rebels and miners had long ago solved their air quality issues by sealing off their mines and building oxygen farms deep underneath the surface in place of relying on domes the surface dwellers used. Air scrubbers, oxygen-producing algae tanks, filters, recycling systems, bio-engineered vegetation, and the environmental technicians who maintained them became unconditional supplements for all human settlements on Mars. Here, oxygen and water held more value than the shiny rocks Earther’s preoccupied themselves with.
Some of the brightest minds in the universe were attempting to engineer their way around the problem of above ground travel, but for now re-breather’s and compressed oxygen tanks remained the norm. The drawback to having the extra tanks on the outside of Starkindler was that they were not stealthy, significantly increasing their radar return profile. To compensate, Aurora scanned for threats at full capacity with active radar even though the risk of giving away their position by doing so increased significantly, making her sweeps as wide as possible in order that they would have time to jettison and then move away from the tanks should they come across anyone else on their expedition.
The sun setting just over the distant horizon tinted the sky its curious blues so different than Earths, marking the completion of the sixth day since he landed planet-side, and during that limited span Aurora used the time well. Multiple satellites were already compromised by her brilliant hacking skills, which she then put to use obtaining real-time visuals of their surroundings as well as communicating with the drone back at the weather station, linking with her replicated shell she created as a worst-case scenario failsafe. Her processing power, and the abilities they granted her, gave her capabilities that increased by the hour as she continued to hack and enslave ever more computers, thereby becoming even more capable.
Nearly all travel that occurred on Mars was overland, across a surface area equal to that of all Earths landmasses in one unending desolate sea of dust, exposed rock, and crater after crater. They were in a repeating grind pattern, gliding effortlessly over the broken terrain that etched deep into the surface by bodies of water that had long since been swallowed by the planet. It would take a little under three days to reach the cargo pod, a day to secure it, and then a day for preparing to move and rest. Then the trip back would take over five days because the supply pod would travel much slower than Starkindler, and a convoy only moved as fast as its slowest member. Mikkhael relaxed, allowing the time to pass unnoticed, enjoying the rhythmic, almost feline movements of the Mech armor underneath him as he took in the alien scenery that surrounded him, adjusting slowly to the change in gravity compared to what he grew up in. Initial long-range scans showed the pod thus far completely undiscovered and the trip promised to be tedious and routine at best.
To pass the time, Aurora scanned and catalogued any information that might eventually prove useful, passing along anything she found that might interest him. They searched for signs of past battles, such as wreckage or scars etched into the exposed rock that covered nearly all the Martian surface. Anything that might indicate the range of a specific rebel faction or PDF outpost; as well as faint radio and signal traffic that would give away only a rare and imprecise location of another faction’s location. Due to the pervasiveness of the blowing dust, and the violence of the storms that sometimes raged across the surface for months at a time, entire lost empires could be below their feet and they would never know in much the same way that the snows back on Earth claimed entire continents. Instead of walking with their heads down, searching fruitlessly for buried artifacts, they kept their heads up and eyes open, hunting for local PDF patrol patterns and planning ambush locations for future missions.
Before he noticed, most of the second day passed by as quickly as the first in that manner. “Aurora, I’m going to leave you to it. Wake me in six hours or even the slightest sign of danger.”
Mikkhael ignored her confirmation, trusting in her capabilities as his eyes closed of their own volition, the cockpit chair adjusting to sleep mode while she took over. The chair was able to change shapes with a small electrical charge, shifting into an almost horizontal position in the cramped cockpit, a section converting into a prone lumbar support while the top morphed into the shape of an air filled pillow. Aurora
would alert him if anything appeared on the sensors. In the meantime, Starkindler would continue to eat up the miles to their destination; its operational time was nearly two weeks of contiguous operation without any loss of combat effectiveness or worry about heat build-up from the reactor.
Two more days passed uneventfully. The alien scenery never getting old. This far out from the rebel base, Mount Olympus and the Tharsis bulge somehow still managed to dominate the horizon behind him, in front lay wave after wave of craters crisscrossing the sea of red dust. The trip was as routine as any such thing could be called, the time passing slowly but pleasantly as he once again laid down to rest while Aurora took over. When he woke up, he glanced at the clock, realizing with a start that almost ten hours had passed. He jerked upright and the chair instantly converted beneath him back to its original position. He began scanning the log system for what happened while he had been asleep as well as scanning the current sensor readings, his gut churning while he did so. Seeing nothing threatening, he took a closer look at the logs ensuring that Aurora had correctly allowed him to sleep so long uninterrupted. His palms were sweating at the sheer vulnerability of falling asleep in hostile territory, he saw nothing to justify the near-panic gripping him, but remained unable to brush aside and ignore the feeling either.
To distract himself and make use of the time, he grabbed a quick prepackaged meal from the locker to eat as he settled back into the pilot’s role, all while continuing to scan the monitors. He could not explain the feeling to anyone if he had been asked, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The feeling of imminent danger would not go away. There were plenty of stories in reference to ESP, or the sixth sense some people claimed to have, especially veteran soldiers on the battlefield. He opened his mouth to tell Aurora to run a systems check when an alert sounded on the threat monitor.
Starkindler (MechaVerse Series Book 1) Page 13
