Girl on Mars

by Jack McDonald Burnett

  “And yet here we are, broken into the place. Give you any ideas?”

  “Perhaps this would have been our last resort if your Pelorian friend hadn’t shown up,” Jeffrey said. “Then we would have encountered the issue that they are one-person vehicles, with no space for cargo, and there were four of you. For right now, what I want you to pay attention to is this.”

  Jeffrey led her to a gun. Its base was dome-shaped, half a sphere a meter in diameter with a flat bottom. The gun itself jutted from the dome, the length of Conn’s arm, as big around as the circle Conn could make with the fingers of both hands. The base swiveled. It had started out an off-white but had yellowed, from age or storage or use, Conn didn’t know.

  “This is a gravity gun,” Jeffrey said. “It’s meant to be attached to a fighter, a ground assault vehicle, the surface of a structure you’re trying to defend, anywhere flat. It’s power needs are very adaptive, and if you install it on one of your spacecraft you should be able to power it with solar radiation, magnetism, whatever you power other things with.”

  “Fuel cells.”

  Jeffrey looked surprised. “I’m not sure why you attracted the attention of the Aphelials with spacecraft that use internal power,” he said. “But no matter. I’m sure you can draw power from them, too. It doesn’t take much.”

  The gun was heavy, but manageable. Conn would arrange for a dolly when she got to Sunnyvale and it was three times heavier.

  “Take it now,” Jeffrey said. “This room will be guarded next time we come. And we have no place to stow it. Just take it. Go home.”

  # # #

  The federal government bought two rockets from EMSpace and two capsules from Dyna-Tech and gave them all to Yongpo. Conn Air still only had a skeleton crew, mostly management. No matter. The government would pay Conn Air to install the gun and launch the capsule to the Aphelial spacecraft, and they would pay Dyna-Tech for the use of its workers to fill in Conn’s and Yongpo’s gaps. With the premium the government paid, both companies would make out like bandits, if money meant anything again in a few weeks.

  It wasn’t a simple matter of bolting the gun on to the underside of the capsule. It had to sit precisely on the vertical axis of the spacecraft, so that the gun’s recoil would push the capsule along only one axis. But that recoil was tremendous, and had to be blunted somehow. So Conn Air and Dyna-Tech engineers worked day and night designing a jet for the top of the spacecraft which would fire simultaneously with the gun, and keep the spacecraft steady. They committed to having the gun and jet mechanism installed and working within six days. The company needed four additional days, ten total, to ready the two rockets—one backup—for the mission.

  For three days, Conn spent every waking hour at the for-lease hangar adjacent to EMSpace’s launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Persisting accompanied her, having an engineering background and a unique perspective on the whole endeavor.

  “Is all this just stupid?” Conn asked her friend.

  “A gravity gun will make short work of that Aphelial spacecraft,” Persisting said. “I question whether taking the spacecraft out is the most important thing all these people could be working on. But that’s probably not fair. All of NASA and a dozen other agencies are working the nitrous oxide problem full time.”

  They were, and they had made some exciting progress. The theory that had outlasted a dozen others involved devices in orbit, solar powered, scattering photon-sized catalysts over the globe. A fleet of twenty-four super-pressure balloons had been launched to try to analyze the relative speed and density of the generation of nitrous oxide. NASA hoped to pinpoint the location of the devices from that data.

  Persisting also lent his expertise to the quick construction and installation of a “drone killer” like the one he’d used when rescuing them from Mars. “It uses an electromagnetic pulse, as you may have guessed,” he said. “The trick is in its not affecting your own vessel.” Without native Pelorian technology, Persisting could only rig a one-use weapon. “Use it wisely.”

  They didn’t have a simulation programmed for what Conn was going to do with the gravity gun, so she spent a couple of days in Houston simulating everything but. Then she had some fone calls to make.

  # # #

  “Sorry I’m late,” Conn told Jeffrey when she found him at her appointed polling place.

  “Government goons tried to take out the portal last night,” Jeffrey said. “We barely held it. I think your presence here is going to be very welcome. As far as the government is concerned you’re certainly unwelcome.”

  “I thought we passed some extra guards there today,” Conn said.

  “We?”

  “You said there are three other polling places,” Conn said. “I brought three other astronauts.” Izzy, Ryan, and Jake Dander were each guarding another polling place in the settlement. “I had to show them each where to go.”

  Jeffrey hugged her.

  She caught him up on their progress with the gravity gun. The installation was scheduled to be finished today. She would be launching in four days’ time. “Spare a thought for us that day, would you?”

  “Of course. You in particular.”

  Conn had a near-confrontation with a group of four “freelance security personnel” outside the polling place, but they backed down and left after a while. Jeffrey said he’d never seen so many voters participating in a vote. “Usually less than a third of today’s turnout, certainly,” he said.

  Not more than twenty minutes after she got rid of the “security personnel,” Conn was inside the polling place, where she’d thought there was a problem. She heard a yelp from outside and some other raised voices. She made her way out.

  She came face to face with the bailiff.

  “I hear you’ve been turning voters away from here,” he said. “I’m here to enforce order.”

  “Mars: Bizarro World,” she said in English.

  “I don’t know what that means,” the bailiff said. He crouched and assumed a fighting stance. Hunched down, he was still a foot taller than Conn.

  He moved in and swung. Conn swatted it away with her forearm. With his other hand, the bailiff grabbed Conn’s shoulder and tugged, upsetting her balance. Conn used the momentum, putting her head down and driving her shoulder into his crotch. He said, “Oof.”

  “Your fault for being so tall,” Conn said. She sprang back out of his reach.

  The bailiff darted forward and kicked like he was trying for a field goal. He got Conn in the rib cage. She folded, breaking a fall with her hands. He kicked again and got her in the face. The kick propelled her backward onto her rear end. The flesh around her right eye felt hot, and it was already swelling.

  She made an effort to calm herself. She couldn’t counter in a rage, he’d eat her alive.

  She was back up. The bailiff swung, the punch glancing off Conn’s shoulder. She was thankful his muscles had developed on Mars and not Earth; he punched hard enough. Conn moved in and connected with an uppercut in the gut. While he was momentarily stunned, she reared back and swung her left fist as hard as she could. She got him in the chest, but he was moving backward so not hard.

  He grabbed her shoulder again, and tugged. With his other fist he tried his own uppercut. It got her in the jaw, but she was turning her head. Her right arm was pinned to her side. She grabbed his wrist with her left arm and pulled as hard as she could. She got an uppercut in the rib cage. She wrenched his grip loose and tugged herself, spinning the bailiff. He crouched almost to his knees to keep his balance. She kicked for his face, but he blocked it with a forearm. It stung—it was a hard kick—and he was startled. She raised her arms over her head and brought both fists down on his head. That flattened him to the ground.

  Conn cycled backward. Her eye was swelling shut. She was going to need that eye in four days. She cursed at herself. What had she thought would happen today?

  The bailiff drew himself up, with difficulty. Conn moved in and kicked. He tried to catch her fo
ot in his left hand. Conn broke some fingers.

  Then he was up and had something new: a knife in his right hand. At least he couldn’t grab her shoulder with his much longer reach anymore.

  He swung the knife hand at her and she jumped back just out of its reach. He chopped at her again. He missed. She punched him in the bicep. He dropped the knife. She put her head down and bore her shoulder into him again, driving him back. She picked up the knife.

  She had no intention of using it, but he didn’t know that.

  She showed him she had the knife, waving it before her as she crouched.

  He decided he’d had enough. He held up his hand in a stop gesture, and crept backwards. Someone shoved him from behind, but it had no effect other than to jostle him. He turned and power-walked away.

  Conn touched her swollen eye and winced.

  FORTY-ONE

  Damage

  February 28 - March 3, 2040

  They couldn’t find Ryan.

  He had gone missing from the polling place he was guarding before the voting was over, and no one knew where he went or had seen him since.

  Conn, Izzy and Jake stood before the portal. Jeffrey and four guards were with them. In ten minutes, they would lose line-of-sight with the portal on Phobos. Less than an hour after that, the Phobos and space station portals would be separated by the sun.

  “We have to leave,” Izzy said. Jake looked nervous.

  “We have to leave in ten minutes,” Conn said anxiously.

  “Nine-oh-five,” Jake said, consulting his Wear.

  “You two go,” Conn said.

  “Conn, don’t be selfish,” Izzy said.

  “Selfish?”

  “The world needs you in four days,” Izzy said, raising her voice. “You can’t stay here and die. I’m sorry.”

  “Ryan will die!” Conn exclaimed. “They obviously have him. The government, I mean.”

  “We would know by now,” Jeffrey said. “They would want something.”

  “So then he’s hurt somewhere and can’t find help.”

  “Conn, you’re acting like we have a choice,” Jake said. “We don’t. We have to go back to Earth. We can’t survive here.”

  “We won’t have to, if Jeffrey’s people win the vote,” Conn said. “Then we can borrow those fighters.”

  “That’s your plan?”

  “Those fighters that seat three and might not even work?”

  “Conn, listen to me,” Jeffrey said. “We’re not going to win. We were never going to win. The government is too organized, and too many people are dependent on it. We’ll come close, and that’s what we wanted. People have hope now. They’re not going to have power. Not yet.”

  “You could help us steal them,” Conn said. “We talked about this.”

  “Unless they found out we’ve stolen from them already and double up on security,” Jeffrey said.

  “Seven minutes,” Jake said.

  “I’m prepared to force you into that portal, Conn,” Izzy said.

  “I’ll help,” Jake said, moving to the other side of Conn from Izzy.

  “You two are astronauts! We don’t leave people behind!”

  “We do when it’s him or the rest of the world, Conn.”

  They waited. Jake looked even more nervous.

  “Two minutes.”

  “Conn, listen to me,” Jeffrey said. “I’ll find him. I’ll find him wherever he is. And I’ll send him home.”

  “You’ll find him alive? If the government has him, you’ll do what it takes to get him back?”

  “The government doesn’t have him, Conn. But yes. I will do what it takes.”

  Conn sniffled. “There’s field rations in my duffel bag.” Looking for Ryan, she hadn’t gone back to her quarters. “A week’s worth. If he rations, that can be a lot more.”

  “One minute.”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t need a lot more.”

  “I’d better have your word,” Conn said. Tears dripped down her cheeks.

  “You have my word,” Jeffrey said.

  # # #

  Still numb, eye still swollen though not shut anymore, Conn launched four days later on the rocket Homme, in the capsule Fille. Including the times she had gone to the space station to supervise the construction of the Mars spacecraft, it was her thirteenth launch from Earth into space.

  She was alone. She wanted it that way.

  What was someone else supposed to do? They’d get in her way.

  But the real issue was that she couldn’t see this little endeavor ending well. She might get a shot off at the Aphelial spacecraft; the first shot might connect and prevent retaliatory fire, she might get home safely after all that. But she wasn’t holding her breath. And there was no reason for two people to die. She had no desire to ask yet another person to do something for her that would get them killed. Like Ryan.

  The president had been clear addressing the public that the source of the catalysts for turning N and O2 into N2O was a series of a dozen devices located two hundred miles up and around the globe which they couldn’t actually detect, they were only hypotheses, and they were hypothetically activated by photons from the sun, which pushed these photon-sized catalysts into the atmosphere, where they made a beeline for the nearest O2 molecule, and achieved the chemical transformation by a process scientists still didn’t understand. But that was confusing, and a majority of the public were expecting Conn’s mission to save the world. She would disappoint half the country, even if she succeeded.

  Her mind was wandering in that direction when the Aphelial spacecraft appeared in her rendezvous window. She would pass it in a higher orbit, then slow to get close to it, just like last time. But this time, she would skirt over it and blast it with the gravity gun mounted to her underside. Who had told her it would make short work of the spacecraft? Jeffrey? Persisting? Right. It was sure to be a piece of cake.

  She passed the spacecraft, turned so her engines were facing the direction of travel, and fired them, reciting each step to the Cape. She was sinking and the Aphelial spacecraft was catching up to her now.

  She pitched ninety degrees so that her engines, and the gun, were pointed underneath her. At the Aphelial spacecraft, when she passed over it. Though now she couldn’t see it except in a tiny monitor among her controls.

  The spacecraft rose to meet her. That much she could see on her screen.

  She sailed over it.

  When she judged that she was directly over the bat ears, she fired the gravity gun. A spurt from the jet installed on the nose of the capsule fired at the same time. But it wasn’t enough to completely counter the recoil. The Aphelial spacecraft rushed away underneath her as she rose relative to it.

  “Recoil got me,” she told the Cape. “Pitching 180 degrees.”

  She did this, and fired her engines to retard her progress. Now she had a clear view of the Aphelial vessel.

  It was in two pieces.

  A smaller nose and a larger section of the back. The rest of it had ceased to exist.

  “Holy crap,” she said.

  “Didn’t copy that, Fille. Say again?”

  “I got it. I—it’s been destroyed.”

  She heard whoops and applause back at the Cape.

  She smiled and shook her head. Piece of cake.

  She hadn’t saved the world, but she’d killed the bastards who destroyed it.

  “Conn, stand by for the president.”

  Conn sighed and stood by.

  “Conn, you’ve really come through for your country and your planet today,” Mickey Lanihan said. “As we continue to work to stop the chemical transformation of our air, we can do so knowing we won’t be molested. And what you’ve done has brought some measure of justice to the situation. Speaking for the American people, thank you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President.”

  She supposed she should work on getting home.

  There was a flash outside, to port.

  “Seeing a flash her
e,” she said. “Maybe fire or an explosion from the Aphelial spacecraft—”

  The next shot got her, and tore a gash in the capsule. Right in front of the copilot’s seat.

  She switched on her T-field and fumbled for her breathing bubble and O2 tanks. The air hissed out of the capsule, steadily but slower than Conn would have thought. The gash must not be as wide as it seemed. It seemed the width of her arm. The length of it, too.

  Loose objects sped toward the gash and slammed into it; most then snaked their way out into the vacuum. A couple of larger objects, a clipboard with a checklist, Conn’s fone, stuck to the inside of the gash and partially blocked it.

  She had emergency repair foam—but she didn’t have time for that.

  She pressed her bubble to the port window and saw an Aphelial fighter bearing down on her. A blast of light sailed over the capsule going in the opposite direction from the fighter. She lunged over to the starboard window and there was another fighter. They crossed directly above her.

  She thought about running, until she saw all the flashing warning messages on her screens. The shot that got her had taken out something important.

  Conn had a one-use weapon that might save her life: Persisting’s “drone killer.” She lunged to her seat and the controls. The trigger was handheld, attached to a wire strung over her head. She pulled it down.

  Persisting had told her the range of the weapon, but she had no way of gauging how far away the fighters were. She would have to wait until they were on top of her. They, of course, could shoot at her from afar.

  A fighter approached in her rendezvous window, the other in her starboard window. Now if they missed they weren’t going to hit one another.

  A third fighter appeared. She could only use her “drone killer” once. How many fighters was she facing?

  The third fighter appeared to be on a rendezvous course with the fighter in her forward window. There was a flash in the starboard window. They were shooting. She had to trigger the electromagnetic pulse. If she got hit squarely, she would be killed.