Mars Rising (Saving Mars Series 6)

by Cidney Swanson

  54

  I’VE GOT THIS FEELING

  Jessamyn awoke in a cold sweat, her heart pounding as though she’d been running uphill. She clawed her way out from under the down-filled blanket on her bed and jumped down from the too-high bed, calling out, “Lights.”

  The room illuminated, light reflecting off the chandelier crystals, off the mirrors with their elaborately carved frames layered over in gold leaf. She rubbed her eyes and looked at her wrist chrono-tattoo. She’d managed to sleep for ninety minutes. Which was something of a miracle, considering the news they’d received from MCC.

  She pulled on warm clothes; Budapest was cooling as fall advanced. Shuffling down the hall connecting their rooms, Jess saw a light in the central room where the group met, studied, consulted.

  “Eth?” she said softly.

  Her brother acknowledged her. “Jessamyn.” He did not look up.

  “Are you still sending messages to those Terran M-class ships?” she asked.

  “I canceled tomorrow’s interviews to devote myself full-time to the endeavor.”

  Jessamyn shook her head. Her brother was now as popular as she was, weird notwithstanding. But popular didn’t stop ships from firing missiles. Jess chewed her lower lip. “She’s outsmarted us. Somehow.”

  “Crusty may have misinterpreted the data leading him to believe the ships are still armed.”

  Jessamyn snorted in derision. “And you might lose a game of chess to me.”

  Ethan looked up at his sister. “That is unlikely.”

  “My point exactly,” said Jessamyn. “We’re missing something. We have to think like Lucca thought. She set something in play so those ships would continue on course no matter what happened to her.”

  “I concur.”

  Jessamyn began pacing along her favorite path down one side of the room where the burgundy carpet was thick and unworn. What was it Pavel had said on the Moon, when Yevgeny revealed his part in the deaths of Pavel’s parents?

  Pavel had told Jess his aunt would have made certain Yevgeny was motivated to do what she wanted him to do. It’s never a simple request with her—that’s not how she works. Pavel was certain Yevgeny had been strongly coerced.

  So what had Lucca done with the crews of those M-class ships? What had she promised? Or, more likely, threatened them with?

  “Eth, can you access the personnel files to find out who is on the two ships heading to Mars?”

  “The Viceroy has granted me unrestricted access to all things pertaining to the Chancellor’s endeavors.”

  “Is that a ‘yes’?”

  “Affirmative,” replied her brother.

  “Okay,” said Jess. “Here’s what I want you to do. You get in those files and you start by finding out who has family alive. Find out who has an aged or injured parent, for instance.”

  Jess shivered, remembering the night Gaspar Bonaparte had taken her from Yucca and delivered her to the Chancellor. Lucca had threatened a tailor with death-by-scissors if Jess didn’t dose herself with Equidima. Jess could still hear the tailor’s pleas, saying she had a sibling who depended on her.

  “Look for someone who has an alter-abled child,” said Jess. “Or a sibling needing special medical care. That sort of thing.”

  “What possible benefit—”

  Jessamyn cut her brother off. “Just do it. I’ve got this feeling.” She drew one hand across her belly, where it tingled, icy-cold.

  An hour later, Ethan presented Jessamyn with a single name: Arturo Yilmaz, chief communications officer aboard the PSS Ironclad.

  “That’s our man,” said Jessamyn. “That is who we have to reach. I’m waking up Harpreet and Pavel, but I’ll bet they agree.”

  Jess explained to Harpreet and Pavel what she suspected. “What do you think, Pavel? Would your aunt have threatened someone like Yilmaz? Forced him to ignore incoming messages?”

  Pavel nodded grimly. “He’d still have to read the messages, though. We need to meet his daughter. The next message to the ships has to come from her.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Sabiha Yilmaz, like most girls her age, had been struck with Jessamyn-fever. Getting in to see Yilmaz’s daughter had been tricky, but before the sun rose over Budapest, Jess and Pavel had recorded a vid in which Sabiha asked her father to make sure the Chancellor’s ships spared Mars Colonial, home to her new friend, Jessamyn of Mars.

  The Chancellor, at the girl’s bedside, affirmed for the camera that this was her command.

  55

  A FLUTTER OF RED HAIR

  When Arturo Yilmaz decoded and authenticated the latest in the Chancellor’s daily comms, he very nearly fainted at the image he first saw: Sabiha, in her hospital bed, beside Chancellor Lucca Brezhnaya. Arturo imagined the Chancellor was going to do something terrible to his child while forcing him to watch—some new threat to coerce him.

  Sabiha was not, however, harmed before his very eyes for his transgressions. Instead, after introductory remarks by the Chancellor, he was treated to a one-sided conversation with his daughter where she talked to him, smiling and happy. She ended her message with a final plea, echoing what the Chancellor had ordered.

  “You will help Jessamyn, won’t you?” Sabiha had asked.

  Yes. Yes, he would help his daughter to help the people of Mars.

  After that, Arturo Yilmaz sifted carefully through the messages from the Chancellor and the messages from Earth and even the half dozen messages originating from the direction of the red planet.

  What he discovered shook him to the core. Life on Mars. After all this time. Picking and choosing from the many comms he had received, he created a narrative which he then broadcast ship-wide to the Ironclad and the Impervious.

  And then he waited to be thrown either into the brig or out the aft airlock.

  When the Admiral was thrown into the brig instead, no one was more surprised than Arturo Yilmaz.

  Once the Admiral was removed from command, the Mars-class vessels en route to the red planet did what the Chancellor demanded: they dumped all heavy ordnance and disabled their laser canons. And then the crews of the two vessels began to pray to every divinity recognized on Earth that the Martians wouldn’t come after them. There wasn’t enough fuel for a return trip without stopping on Mars first.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eighteen days after Jessamyn had arrived in Budapest, she watched as the supposed Chancellor delivered a resignation speech on one of the major broadcast feeds. Although she had been voted out of office, in her farewell address, the Chancellor cited health reasons for her retirement. Upon questioning, she admitted to certain … irreconcilable differences with members of the House of Parliament and the Viceroy. She did not, however, admit to having been defeated. Bonaparte’s performance was breathtaking.

  “You don’t think that’s really your aunt, by any chance, do you?” Jess murmured in Pavel’s ear.

  Pavel shook his head. He’d said almost nothing about the final passing of the woman who had raised him to adulthood. Jess wondered if he felt anything other than relief she was gone. Although, in a way, she wasn’t really … gone. Pavel had devoted hours to coaching Gaspar Bonaparte on Lucca’s turns of phrase, opinions, and habits.

  Onscreen, the “Chancellor” produced a sad smile and spoke softly on this, her final broadcast, live from the House of Parliament.

  “I have always striven after one and only one goal: to leave Earth better than I found it. I leave my position today in the sure knowledge that my efforts have not been in vain. That the Terran people will someday, if not this day, recognize the enormity of what I have accomplished and what I have sacrificed.” She nodded in farewell, caught at a single tear, and stepped down from the dais, a defeated woman who exited with her head held high.

  ~ ~ ~

  Yevgeny’s bargain had been a simple one. It was unusual, however, in that it was designed to benefit someone besides himself. He had known ahead of time the price of telling the truth—all the truth. Better than most, he
had known it could only result in his own un-bodying.

  For the Chancellor, there had been leniency because the Chancellor had written leniency toward misbehaving public servants of high rank into the very bylaws of the Rebody Program. Someone as high in rank as the Chancellor would be stripped of her position, naturally, and of wealth, but she would not be un-bodied. Not officially. Knowing this, Yevgeny had come back to Earth to see justice served in his sister’s case.

  This, he had done. And he did not mind that leniency would not be extended to him for his violations of the Rebody Program. He was ready. He was tired. At first, he’d thought he would like to have his ashes spread on the Moon. But then another idea had occurred to him.

  What if his body was released, not into general circulation, but awarded to a particular individual in redress of egregious wrongs suffered by that individual? Thus, before he agreed to testify, the Ghost asked to be allowed to name the recipient of his current body when the time should come for him to leave it.

  The court specially convened for the purpose of deciding Yevgeny’s fate was reluctant to make specific promises in exchange for the information he could provide, but in the end, they agreed. His testimony was uniquely valuable. So Yevgeny got his way: his body was to be awarded unconditionally to Ethan Jaarda, wrongfully re-bodied Marsian.

  The Ghost had known better than to demand the Viceroy release Ethan’s original body back to Ethan. Such a request would be denied. The Viceroy was already known to have re-bodied recently; it had been a highly publicized affair, but even so, there had been an undercurrent of doubt among some Terrans. Was it still the same Viceroy?

  If Earth’s head of state were to re-body a second time within the year, the questions would reverberate more and more loudly. It would be challenging enough to ensure a smooth governmental transition once the (supposed) Chancellor was deposed.

  No, Yevgeny knew the Viceroy must remain in his current body. If the Ghost had a secondary motivation, namely that Ethan had confided he did not miss some aspects of his original body, no one needed to know that. The Ghost was confident Ethan would enjoy Yevgeny’s body a great deal more than the amputee body within which he currently resided.

  So, the deal had been struck: Yevgeny’s testimony in exchange for Ethan’s receipt of Yevgeny’s healthy fourbody. It was time. The Ghost was tired. So very, very tired.

  There had never been any doubt that Yevgeny would turn over his body on the appointed day, so instead of imprisonment, he was granted freedom and a pair of guards. He was allowed to make final arrangements and say farewells. And really, even the guards were for show, only.

  The Ghost made an unusual request for his final day, desiring, of all things, entertainment. His request having been granted, he located a theater in Budapest performing Shakespeare plays. He chose a matinee and an evening performance, purchased four tickets for each show and then asked Jessamyn if she would do him the great honor of accompanying him.

  “Along with my guards, naturally,” said Yevgeny. “I’m afraid they go everywhere I go. Twin shadows.” He laughed, softly, briefly.

  Jessamyn agreed. He’d known she would. She was not the sort of girl to refuse the wish of a man about to die.

  The Winter’s Tale made Yevgeny cry. The Tempest made both of them cry, when the actor playing Prospero renounced his art and broke his staff.

  And then it was time to go to the hospital.

  Yevgeny hadn’t asked Jessamyn to attend him to New Kelen for his un-bodying, but she went with him anyway, as though it had been an established thing between them.

  When she accompanied him, Yevgeny said, “Your brother will want you there, I suppose.” After all, Yevgeny’s procedure and Ethan’s were linked.

  “Oh, Ghost,” Jessamyn said, wiping at a fresh cluster of tears. “I’m not going so I can be with Ethan. I’m going so I can be with you.”

  And so, she sat with him as they prepped him, placing soft restraints to keep his body in good condition for Ethan. She sat with him as the doctor explained the procedure and asked Yevgeny’s permission to continue. And when the final sedative was administered, the girl from Mars leaned over him and placed a tender kiss upon one cheek. Yevgeny’s last remembrance was of a gentle sigh, a tear, a flutter of red hair.

  56

  MARS WITHOUT YOU

  “Jess.” A soft voice. One she liked. “Wake up.”

  Jess was already awake. Following their complete exoneration by the Terran government, the Marsians and their sympathizers had moved into Pavel’s former home, and Jess had been staring at the elaborately carved ceiling of her bedroom, wondering what it had been like growing up here, in Lucca’s palatial residence.

  Jess rubbed her eyes and sat up. “I’m awake. What’s wrong?”

  Pavel entered the room. Kissed her forehead. Swept aside a tangle of hair. “Nothing’s wrong. Cameron’s here.”

  A frown. “Something’s always wrong. If nothing were wrong, that would be wrong.”

  Pavel laughed. “Come on. Cameron’s dying to give you a bear hug. She’ll probably bust through your door if you don’t hurry.”

  Nothing was wrong. It seemed like a good start to a day.

  As she rose, two books slid off her bed, tumbling onto the wooden parquet floor. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes. Reading, of course. For the past several days, she’d had all the time in the world to devote to her second favorite activity behind flying.

  As she picked up her books, Pavel kissed her behind the ear. She made a mental note and downgraded reading to her third favorite activity behind flying.

  Downstairs, in the breakfast room of the Chancellor’s palace, Cameron Wallace sat talking with Harpreet. Jess greeted them both.

  “There she is!” cried Cameron. “The girl from Mars in the flesh!” She rose, threw her arms around Jess, and lifted her right off the ground. “Och! Ye’re nothing but skin and bones, child! Aren’t they feeding ye, then? Come back to Madeira and we’ll fatten ye up with kippers and pizza and teacakes and—”

  “I’m doing fine, truly,” said Jessamyn. Her face felt crinkly from grinning so soon after rising, and she rubbed her cheeks with both hands. “I am hungry, though,” she said, glancing to the buffet set up on the side of the breakfast room.

  Jess was having a hard time adjusting to eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner in separate dining rooms. Pavel was making noises about selling Lucca’s palace and donating the money to a hospital in Hong Kong.

  “Hungry!” exclaimed Cameron. “I should think so.” Mumbling under her breath, she added, “Skin and bones. Nothing but.”

  Harpreet laughed softly. Jess loaded a rations plate with late summer berries, creamy yogurt (a new favorite), and kifli before seating herself between Cameron and Pavel.

  “Ye could stand to take a page from the lad’s book,” said Lady Wallace, indicating Pavel’s plate, overflowing with smoked fish, sausages, scones, eggs, and toast.

  Jess smiled. “It’s not the Marsian way.”

  “Hmm,” intoned Cameron. “Ye’re still set on returning to that ball of ice, then?”

  Jess smiled, her lips coated in powdered sugar from the kifli. “You can take the girl out of Mars, but you can’t take Mars out of the girl.”

  Cameron sighed. “Aye, lass. I’d be back in the Highlands meself if I wasn’t needed on Madeira.” Her brows drew close. “Have ye never considered they may need ye here, dearie, on Earth?”

  Jess shook her head. “Not as bad as they need me on Mars.”

  “Oh, phhht,” replied Cameron. “They’ll arrest ye as soon as ye set foot on Marsian soil. That’s the opining of yer fine friend Mr. Crustegard.”

  Jess shrugged. Mei Lo, on behalf of MCC, had already ordered Jess to return so she could stand trial for the theft and destruction of the Red Galleon. Mars Colonial expected her to get onboard as soon as the Terran ships, not yet landed on Mars, returned to Earth. Her way back was being prepaid. Jess understood. If she resisted, MCC would have no choice b
ut to demand Earth’s government extradite her. To do anything else would set dangerous precedents, now that the two worlds were going to have political relations. Jess understood, and, what was more, she planned to follow her orders for once.

  “Right, then,” said Cameron. “Well, in that case, ye’ll be pleased to know I’ve purchased a dilapidated M-class shipyard.”

  Jess breathed sharply and accidentally inhaled powdered sugar, which made her cough through Cameron’s explanation that Brian Wallace was paying to repair the first ship and hoping to climb aboard as Terran ambassador to Mars. Tears formed in Jessamyn’s eyes as she tried to stop coughing.

  “Dear, dear,” said Cameron. “Not a promising start, is this?”

  Swiping at the tears, Jessamyn shook her head. “When will the ship be ready?” Another coughing fit racked her body, and Pavel passed her a steaming cup of tea. His own eyes were solemn. Had he known about the ship already? Was he … not excited?

  Cameron, smiling, began to explain her purposes. With the possibility of openness between the worlds, the clan chief had taken a gamble and purchased the shipyard which had four M-class ships in varying levels of decay.

  “Bought the entire scrap heap the moment Brian told me the girl from Mars was on her way to the capital,” said Lady Wallace, beaming. “Figured if ye spoke before parliament, the price on ships in any state of repair would go straight through the ceiling.” Here the clan chief grinned broadly and took a swig of something Jess didn’t think was tea.

  “I was right, too,” said Cameron. “I could sell that yard for seven times what I paid. Seven times, lass. Of course, I won’t be selling it, now, will I? I’m still counting on ye to convince MCC to allow me those final tellurium runs. And lass, the ship’s to be yer own, once ye complete the runs. Should ye decide to offer the ship to Mars Colonial Command in reparations for the lost Galleon, well, I’d have nothing to say against such a decision.”

  Jessamyn sucked in another deep breath. The kifli, fortunately, had already been set down.