Mars Rising (Saving Mars Series 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  The Governor General looked perturbed. “I don’t need to tell anyone here that as far as I’m concerned, the Chancellor would have been welcome to never wake up from whatever procedure she went in for.”

  Jessamyn kept her face carefully neutral.

  Ethan was the one who responded to the Governor General. “While the Chancellor has been no friend to Mars, surely her death would have plunged Earth into a period of difficulty. I believe we can be grateful you have been spared that much.”

  “Regardless,” said the governor, “the Chancellor will pay for what she’s done.”

  Jess swallowed against the tightening in her throat. She wasn’t looking forward to meeting Gaspar Bonaparte again. Dressed in Lucca’s body or not, he was no friend of hers. Except that, well, he was, obviously. She ran her fingers back and forth along the carved arm of her wooden chair. It was all very confusing.

  She turned to the governor, who seemed to be waiting for a response to his last statement: The Chancellor will pay for what she’s done.

  “So, the, er, Chancellor will be sticking to her schedule and addressing parliament tomorrow with me there?” asked Jessamyn.

  Demkovich nodded grimly. “It’s on the schedule. Mark my words, girl from Mars: you will be the Chancellor’s undoing.”

  Jess drove her index finger into the deeply grooved carving on the arm of the chair. “I can live with that.”

  52

  FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

  In the days following the un-bodying of Lucca Brezhnaya, Gaspar Bonaparte played the role of Chancellor to perfection. The more Jessamyn’s story was corroborated by hard evidence, the taller Bonaparte stood, the more icily he stared down his detractors.

  The impersonator took his role seriously, attempting to throw doubt on the veracity of Jessamyn’s claims. It was maddening. Sometimes, it felt to Jessamyn as if Lucca’s long fingers were reaching, reaching, even from beyond the grave.

  Jessamyn, Harpreet, and Ethan were subjected to hearing after hearing, test after test. It took an agonizing five days for “Chancellor Lucca Brezhnaya” to admit she had been wrong about Mars, but in the end, the evidence against the claim that Mars was uninhabited proved too great. On the fifth day after Jessamyn’s appearance in Budapest, the Chancellor announced to the major news feeds her conviction that she had been in error about Mars’s lack of inhabitants.

  Parliament demanded to know whether or not the ships headed for Mars were armed. Lucca claimed not to know for a certainty that the ships were armed. When pressed, she said that yes, she believed armaments were standard aboard such vessels. Parliament stood resolved: as the mission to mine tellurium was now to become a diplomatic mission, it would not do to have the appearance of war-mongering. The ordnance must be disposed of prior to the arrival of the ships in Marsian space.

  On the sixth day after Jessamyn’s appearance in Budapest, the Chancellor reported to the major Terran news feeds that she had delivered new orders to the ships aimed at Mars, instructing them, in light of current information about the inhabitants of the red planet, to dump any ordnance they might be carrying.

  The Viceroy messaged Jessamyn directly: You may now consider yourself free to inform your government that the ships sent by the Chancellor will not attack Mars.

  It had been agony to keep back information during previous comms, but the Viceroy had insisted. No one was to breathe a single hint that would indicate the Chancellor wasn’t really Lucca Brezhnaya. Jess felt as though she’d aged six annums during the six days she’d been forced to withhold news.

  She wished she could feel with greater conviction that the Chancellor’s orders would be followed. Nightly, she dreamed of Lucca’s blood-red nails, reaching across the boundaries that divided the living and the dead in order to snatch hope from Jessamyn’s grasp.

  ~ ~ ~

  A comm awakened Mei Lo from a dream where she stood on a beach with Rover, watching the planetary dog bark at incoming waves. Strange, she thought. She had never seen actual waves, much less an ocean.

  “This is the Secretary General,” she said, her words slurred with sleep.

  “Madam Secretary, turn on your feed screen, now.”

  “Mendoza?” She brushed a few hairs off her cheek, feeling creases where her face had been imprinted from objects on her desk. She really had to stop sleeping in her office.

  “Yes, ma’am. Is your feed screen on?”

  The Secretary gave the verbal command and an image appeared on the screen wall opposite her desk.

  “Jessamyn,” murmured Mei Lo.

  “It is with great relief,” said Jessamyn Jaarda, “that I present the following statement, issued by the Terran Chancellor, Lucca Brezhnaya.”

  The screen image switched from Jessamyn’s solemn face to a small wafer set on what looked like a rations table. The wafer presented a Terran news broadcast. Mei Lo’s breath caught as she heard the words. The Chancellor was rescinding her orders! The ships were to ask permission to enter Marsian space.

  “Well, I’ll be a son of Phobos,” the Secretary General murmured into the pre-dawn quiet of her office.

  ~ ~ ~

  Arturo Yilmaz, aboard a Mars-class vessel en route to the fourth planet from the sun, ran the incoming message through a program authenticating the Chancellor’s identity a second time.

  There it was again. The message checked out. But it was so … unexpected. The Chancellor was ordering the PSS Ironclad and the PSS Impervious to dump their ordnance and disable their laser canons. Immediately. Yilmaz himself didn’t have the authority to do this, obviously. His only responsibility was to pass the message along to his commanding officer. From there, the message was sent up through three additional officers before reaching the attention of the Admiral leading the mission.

  Thus, when the Admiral himself made his way down to Yilmaz’s cramped office below decks, Yilmaz was very surprised to see him. What could the Admiral mean coming all the way down here?

  “Sir,” Yilmaz said, automatically rising and saluting.

  “At ease.” The Admiral gazed about the office.

  Yilmaz was tidy, to a fault. Not a charge cord or recyclable out of place.

  The Admiral frowned and glared at Yilmaz. “What’s this nonsense about the Chancellor telling me to proceed to Mars without weapons?”

  “Sir, I can only affirm any message you receive has been thoroughly authenticated. I cannot speak as to the contents of the Chancellor’s orders, sir.”

  “Of course you can’t,” barked the Admiral. “And I’m here to make sure you don’t try to.”

  Yilmaz stood stock still, his gaze straight ahead, as he tried to work out the Admiral’s meaning. “Sir, I request additional clarification, sir. What are the Admiral’s orders, sir?”

  “You keep this so-called message from the Chancellor to yourself. I don’t know who’s behind it, but I’ll tell you one thing: Lucca Brezhnaya did not send this message.”

  Yilmaz only hesitated a fraction of a second. “With respect, sir, the message was definitely recorded by and sent by the Chancellor. It is not possible for me to be mistaken in this matter.”

  The Admiral stepped closer until mere centimeters separated the two men’s noses. “You listen to me, Yilmaz, and you listen carefully. Those ‘orders’ did not come from the Chancellor. Brezhnaya would never have issued such a command. You are to forget you ever saw that message, and you will not repeat anything you might have seen in the course of carrying out your duties to inform me as to incoming messages.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “I’m glad we understand one another. Disregard my orders and I’ll throw you off the ship myself. Understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  ~ ~ ~

  In the wake of Jessamyn’s complete vindication by the Terran House of Parliament, a crisis that had been brewing for decades was reaching critical mass.

  On the eighth day after Jessamyn’s arrival in Budapest, the Terran Chancellor, under oath and ch
allenged by witness after witness, was forced to admit to having tampered with the Rebody Program. Tampering with the Rebody Program was the ultimate betrayal of the people’s trust.

  As more and more evidence mounted against the Chancellor, including damning testimony from her brother, Yevgeny, it became clear Lucca was not the only one going under. The Rebody Program itself was now under attack, creating a crisis of unprecedented proportion.

  Hospitals battled to simply keep their doors opened as nurses, orderlies, and a handful of well-paid surgeons, went on strike. Then, as those promised their fourbodies were turned away and told to return in a few days, there were riots in increasing numbers of cities.

  “Something’s got to be done,” murmured Jessamyn.

  “It will get worse,” predicted Yevgeny, gloomily.

  “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Pavel, his face worn from too many sleepless nights.

  Ethan said nothing, but he spent the time he wasn’t testifying or being cross-examined on a program Jess hadn’t seen him working on before. When she asked what he was working on, her brother said only: a problem with a mathematical solution.

  53

  HE HAD HIS REASONS

  “Still no assassination attempts,” said Yevgeny, entering the room set aside for the use and protection of the Marsians and their sympathizers. It was the ninth day following Jessamyn’s arrival in Budapest.

  Of all the sudden rises to celebrity amongst the Marsians and their sympathizers, none was more surprising than that of Yevgeny Bouchard. Especially to himself. With his perpetually dour expression, downwardly inflected speech, and habit of avoiding eye contact, the Ghost did not seem to have what it took to become a pop icon. Not to mention, he had admitted to re-body fraud on a level that matched the Chancellor’s own. But something in his expression, or perhaps his self-effacing manner, or perhaps his honesty, captured the public imagination and, soon after, its heart.

  Yevgeny looked about the room. He liked it very much. It had no windows. Although it was only one level below the ground, here, he could easily imagine himself back on the Moon. Except for gravity, of course.

  He’d been doing his best to adapt his body to Terran gravity, spending larger and larger portions of each day without the assistance provided by his hoverchair, walking, as he did now. He had his reasons. Oh, yes, he had his reasons.

  Pavel, Harpreet, Jessamyn, Ethan, and even Dr. Kazuko Zaifa were all assembled in the room. Good. He could tell everyone at once. He noted which of them stared curiously at the guards who had accompanied him to the threshold but not past it.

  “No assassination attempts? asked Pavel, rising to offer the Ghost a seat. “You’re referring to attempts on the Chancellor’s life?”

  “No, no,” replied Yevgeny. “I was referring to the lack of attempts on my life.” He looked sadly at the proffered seat and then sank into it.

  “People love you, man,” said Pavel, squeezing onto a chair with Jessamyn.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” said Yevgeny.

  He twirled a large ring he wore on one finger, a gift from Harpreet. A ‘mourning ring,’ she’d called it. Inside a compartment on the back side was a single coiled strand of his sister’s hair.

  Harpreet reached over to place a hand upon Yevgeny’s. “Indeed, they can,” she said softly.

  He smiled, kept silent, and enjoyed the banter of his friends.

  “Your rise in popularity has been meteoric,” said Ethan to the Ghost.

  Jessamyn stared at her brother. “Nice figure of speech,” she murmured.

  Ethan’s brows pulled slightly together. “I believe I employed what would be termed a metaphor.”

  Jess shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Had I instead phrased it, ‘Yevgeny’s rise has been swift as a meteorite’s fall,’ it would have been a simile,” said Ethan.

  “Who are you and what did you do with my brother?” asked Jessamyn.

  “Dr. Zaifa is an excellent instructor,” said Ethan, indicating the woman beside him.

  Yevgeny turned to Kazuko, saw her blush and lower her head, giving it a slight shake.

  “So? Your hearing?” queried Jessamyn. “How did it go, Yevgeny?”

  They had not forgotten. At least, Jessamyn had not.

  Yevgeny looked down at his hands. His hearing had gone well. It had gone exactly as he had hoped. But how was he to communicate this in such a way as to avoid a fuss? He hated fusses. And scenes. And emotional displays. Jessamyn wouldn’t like this at all. She would take it as further proof that Sister was at work from beyond the grave. In a way, Yevgeny supposed this was true. After all, it was Sister’s own legislation that had convicted him.

  Yevgeny sighed. How best to say what he had to say? There was no easy way. He would just have to tell them the truth.

  “They’re going to un-body me,” he said.

  A collective gasp ran around the room.

  Yevgeny frowned. He did not want a scene.

  “I don’t mind,” he said.

  Beside him, Harpreet squeezed his hand. “Tell us in your own words,” she said softly.

  Yevgeny’s downturned mouth turned a bit farther down. “It’s the law. You can’t go breaking re-body regulations for centuries and expect everyone to look the other way.”

  “Unless your name is Lucca Brezhnaya,” muttered Pavel.

  “Shh,” said Jessamyn.

  “He’s right,” said the Ghost. “My sister made everyone look the other way. Hmm. No. She probably killed them so they wouldn’t have to look the other way. In any case, I pleaded guilty to seven counts of re-body fraud and agreed to release this current body into circulation. It’s only missing two years, you know.”

  “That’s wrong, man,” said Pavel. “You cooperated. Shouldn’t there be … I don’t know … some kind of consideration for your testimony against the Chancellor?”

  Yevgeny sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “There was,” he said. “I struck a bargain.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Mei Lo authorized celebrations in MCC’s major metropolitan areas. Resource consumption be damned, she said to herself. Mars had something to celebrate. It was about time. Having completed the authorizations, the Secretary General turned to the next task on her agenda.

  She was finally free to release to Earth the information that had been passed from CEO to CEO on Mars Colonial: that the Terran government had knowingly promoted the abuse of the Rebody Program to allow certain officials to live longer than the allotted seventy-two year lifespans. That the Terran government had, when confronted with this accusation, threatened to wipe out all life on Mars if anyone leaked the information back to Earth.

  It was strange, but Mei Lo no longer felt compelled to emphasize the last point. Neither the ugly blackmail by the Terrans nor the stain upon Mars’s honor in agreeing to the demand seemed as important as they once had to the Secretary. Not that she was planning to withhold this information from her report to the Viceroy, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter in the same way now that talks were underway for a renewed relationship between the worlds.

  Harpreet had, as usual, grasped what was important in the releasing of the information. “Is it your wish to demand Earth’s current residents pay for the sins of their forebears?” she had asked the Secretary. “Or that the residents of Mars offer compensation for their unknowing collusion?”

  “Ares, no,” replied Mei Lo. “Isn’t the important thing now that we, well … move on?”

  “Then let us move on,” Harpreet had replied.

  There was one more matter before the Secretary: Mei Lo intended to ask the Terran visitors to bring Jess and the other Raiders home, pre-paying the cost with Marsian tellurium.. But bringing the Raiders back meant bringing Jessamyn Jaarda to stand trial for her theft of the Red Galleon.

  Despite her status as a planetary treasure, despite all she’d accomplished to assure Mars’s safety, for Jessamyn, coming home to Mars
meant standing trial for the greatest theft in Mars Colonial’s chequered history. Mei Lo clasped both hands together, wishing there was a way to keep Jess off the stand for what she’d done. But Marsian law was clear.

  Sighing, Mei Lo settled down to outline a travel treaty to govern passage between the worlds when a comm interrupted her.

  “I’m busy, Veronica. Make it go away.”

  “Madam Secretary, it’s General Mendoza. And … Daschle Crustegard. They are insisting you will want to see both of them.”

  Of course they would insist, those two old sandblasters. Mei Lo, smiling, shook her head. “Send them in.”

  The Secretary was still smiling when the two men entered her office moments later. She considered offering them a snack from the particularly healthy algae Lillian Jaarda had brought by last week. The flavor improved upon acquaintance, as Crusty had told her it would.

  But something about the way Crusty’s mouth was drawn into a tight line removed all such thoughts from the Secretary’s mind.

  “Holy Ares,” she murmured. “What is it?”

  The two men seemed to be at a loss as to which of them was going to speak, each indicating a willingness to let the other go first.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Mei Lo, her tone sharp.

  “It’s them durned ships the Chancellor sent our way,” said Crusty.

  “We can’t determine that they have dumped their ordnance,” said Mendoza.

  “I’m sure they ain’t done no such thing,” muttered Crusty.

  “We all heard the Chancellor’s speech,” said the Secretary. “She clearly indicated the ships were to regard themselves as guests in Marsian space. She ordered them to dump their weapons.”

  “Well, ma’am,” said Crusty, “we heard the speech about dumping the warhead missiles and disabling the laser canons. But the ships ain’t doin’ what the Chancellor said to do.”

  Mei Lo’s eyebrows pulled together. “They’re … not?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Mendoza. “The ships are as armed as they ever were. And worse still, they’re refusing to answer our hails.”