Jezero City: Colony Four Mars (Colony Mars Book 4)

by Gerald M. Kilby

  “I appreciate your candor, Evon, but so what? We all know this. Anyway, you know more about the accident than anyone as you’ve been sitting on the evidence, doing exactly nothing.”

  “That’s the thing. We don’t know, because every time I inquire as to the progress of the investigation, I get the feeling I’m being stonewalled.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, that I think, like you, that someone or some group within MASS doesn’t want the results out in the open. In short, Dr. Malbec, I think someone is leading us on a merry dance.”

  Evon did another of his quick scans of their surroundings starting in again. “It may come as a surprise to you, but we have a gap in our records concerning Jay Eriksen. It seems that he disappeared from our official database for the best part of four sols. But if someone were to locate the rover’s recorder, we would know where it was during that time, and possibly get some idea as to what Jay Eriksen might have been up to.”

  Jann considered this revelation for a moment. “So how can we do that?”

  “I was hoping you might be able to help in that regard.”

  Jann considered this request. “Here’s the thing, Evon. I don’t know which is more disconcerting. The fact that I may be right in my suspicions, or the fact that you seem to have lost so much trust in your own organization that you want my help.”

  “Anyway, I don’t see how I can help. As you can tell from the reception I just got in the council meeting, I’m fast running out of options. Unless, that is, my errant agent decides to stop screwing around and come back on radar.”

  17

  Reboot

  A brilliant fluorescent light burned its way through to Mia’s retina and into her optic nerve. She shut her eyelids tight and instinctively moved a hand to cover her face. A sharp pain shot up her arm, making her cry out.

  “Mia, you have returned to the land of the living.” It was Gizmo. “For a moment there, I thought you might be past saving. But I see you are made of superior biomass than the average Earthling.”

  “Where… am… I?” Mia’s throat felt like she had just eaten a cheese grater.

  “At way station 29. We made it here just in time.”

  Mia sat up, very slowly. More stabbing pain punctuated her movements. Her chest burned. She looked down to find her flight suit had been ripped open.

  “CPR,” said Gizmo. It pointed to a defibrillator beside the bed. “I needed to reboot you. It took a few attempts before you restarted.”

  Mia clutched her chest. Her skin was raw and she felt like someone had driven a herd of cattle over her. “Thanks,” was the best she could manage. Mia could see they were in the small medbay. “Anyone else here?”

  “No, just us.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Not long, approximately seven minutes.”

  Mia moved into a standing position, one hand still holding the edge of the bed. “Oh my god, my entire body is seriously banged up. I don’t think there’s anywhere that I don’t have pain.” She moved over to the small workspace and started to open drawers. “Painkillers, I need lots of painkillers.”

  It took Mia five minutes of searching and label reading before she could finally sit down in the main common area and take stock of her situation. The droid had not used the comms to send any distress message yet, even though they were now technically stranded. The rover was damaged beyond Gizmo’s ability to repair, so the only way back to civilization was to call for help. But that could alert whoever was trying to kill her that she was still alive.

  “Do you have a way of contacting Dr. Malbec that can’t be traced?”

  “I can send an encrypted message, but I will need to relay it through the way station comms antennae, as I do not possess sufficient range.”

  “Can that be traced?”

  “While the contents would be indecipherable, the transmission would indeed be noted.”

  Mia thought about this. Her only other option was to wait and hitch a ride on the next courier through here, but it could be several sols before anyone else showed up. And with the migration of all citizens to Jezero City for the celebrations, she would be stranded here until after that.

  “Gizmo, get a message to Jann. Tell her someone just tried to kill me and that we’re stranded out here.”

  “Will do.” It buzzed off to the comms desk.

  Mia relaxed a bit as the effects of the painkillers began to kick in. She knew there wasn’t much one could do for cracked ribs but she decided to bandage herself up, just to give her torso some support. Her left wrist was also swollen and extremely painful to move, so it too would need wrapping.

  As she tended to her injuries she considered why someone wanted her dead. It wasn’t because she knew too much. So far, she knew absolutely nothing other than hints. But whoever was after her knew that she was on the hunt, investigating, seeking out the truth. And it must be, that if she kept at it, then the truth would out eventually—whatever the hell it was. So she must be closer than she realized. But where would she find it? Where to next? Had Jay Eriksen also been searching? Did he find something that had got him killed?

  “Mia!” Gizmo came whizzing into the medbay. “I have picked up a rover, approximately five klicks east of us, heading this way.”

  Mia looked surprised. “That was quick.”

  “It is a MASS rover. Should I try to contact it?”

  “No, wait, let’s think this through first. Is it coming from where we abandoned the rover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s way too soon for Dr. Malbec to have mounted a rescue. So I think we need to consider that this situation is not good. It could be that whoever is out to kill me was following us, making sure the job was done. So now that they’ve found our rover empty, they’re going to the only place we could be, here in this way station.”

  Mia realized she was effectively trapped, with no escape. She had no weapons, and in her current weakened state she would not be able to defend herself from a direct assault. What’s more, there could be several people in the approaching rover, all hell bent on her destruction. Think, she said to herself.

  It was also entirely possible that this was a genuine mission. Then Mia would be in a very awkward position, waiting for them to show themselves to be a threat. And when that happened, it would be too late.

  “Gizmo, can you disable comms here? Not permanently, but for a few hours?”

  “Yes, I think I can rig something to do that, a simple battery relay switch on the main antennae should do it. Once the battery drained it would flip back on.”

  “Okay, let’s get to it. Follow me and I’ll explain the plan.”

  Gizmo had estimated around ten minutes before the rover arrived, so Mia didn’t have much time. They moved out of the common area and into a short tunnel with airlocks spaced out on either side. This was where the visiting rovers could connect, but they could also be used as standard airlocks for venturing outside on to the surface. Mia quickly got into a spare EVA suit. Each way station had at least two of these, fully resourced. She booted it up and checked the heads-up display for alerts. When she was sure everything was okay, she took a deep breath, flipped her visor down, and entered the airlock.

  As she waited for the volume to equalize with the outside atmosphere, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. She had assumed that whoever was driving the rover would head straight for the nearest airlock and dock. But if they were being cautious, they might drive around the way station first, check it out to make sure there were no surprises waiting. If that was the case then she would be spotted—there was no place to hide out here, no place to run.

  The outer door opened and Gizmo wasted no time in speeding off across the surface to the antennae, to temporarily disable it. Then it would make its way back inside the way station while Mia waited outside. It would tuck itself into a corner of the docking tunnel, out of the way, and power itself down to make it look like it was in sleep mode. To the
untrained eye it would look like any other G2 unit—parked out of the way, waiting to be assigned some tasks, or simply just non-functioning, waiting for repair. Either way, Mia was hoping it would go unnoticed. Then again, she was hoping for a lot of elements to go her way if this crazy plan of hers was going to work.

  Fortunately the base of the antennae array could not be seen from the direction the rover was approaching. But Gizmo still had to finish the hack and then make it back inside before the MASS rover docked. Mia resisted the temptation to move out and around the side of the docking tunnel to see how close it was, just in case she was seen. It frustrated her because she couldn’t hear it coming either, all she heard, inside the EVA suit, was the sound of her own breathing.

  The droid was taking an eternity. What the hell is keeping it? She slowed her breathing and tried to calm down, and reminded herself that Gizmo was smart beyond belief, so it had probably calculated all the possible parameters, trajectories and vectors. Mia tried hard to convince herself that the robot had it all worked out to the last picosecond.

  She was beginning to tire. Her body was still weak from her near-fatal dash across the surface. She sat down, resting her back against the outer skin of the docking tunnel, and forced herself to slow her heart rate. That was when she felt a subtle vibration. Standing up again and placing both hands on the docking tunnel wall, she could feel the vibration in the building. The rover was very close now. Then there was a thump. Shit, it’s docked. She turned around to see where Gizmo was, and saw it disappear into the airlock—the little droid was cutting it very tight.

  On the one hand Mia breathed a sigh of relief that whoever was driving the MASS rover had not decided to do a quick scout of the area, but on the other hand she wondered if Gizmo had left itself with enough time. It needed to be in position before the airlock opened and disgorged its occupants into the way station.

  She could feel the thump and whirr of the airlock motors as they ran through their sequences by keeping her hands pressed against the docking tunnel skin. Finally, after a few fretful moments, it went quiet. She stepped back. Has Gizmo done it? Mia turned and walked to the very end of the docking tunnel, turned the corner, and very tentatively peered around to see the nose of the rover. She waited.

  She could see it rock slightly as something heavy moved inside it, then Gizmo appeared at the controls. The little robot had done it. The rover started up, detached itself from the dock and moved out towards Mia. She came out of her hiding place and waved to Gizmo. It responded by giving a kind of thumbs up gesture.

  Mia ran to the rear airlock as the rover came past. The outer door was already open and she clambered inside. As soon as the door closed she felt the rover pick up speed, away from way station 29. She exited the airlock, removed her helmet and gloves, and sat in the cockpit seat beside Gizmo.

  “Well done.” She slapped the robot on the back and instantly regretted it, as pain shot up her arm.

  “Thank you, but it was elementary. And, if I may say, it was an excellent plan, Mia.”

  “I don’t believe it, am I getting a compliment?”

  “Credit where credit is due, is that not the common saying in these circumstances?”

  Mia rubbed the pain out of her wrist as she slumped back into the co-pilot seat. “So how many were there?”

  “Just one, see here.” Gizmo played a video feed on the rover’s main screen. It was shaky at first then steadied to show a view down the length of the docking tunnel. From the right hand side a figure entered, tall, hard to tell what age. He held a small plasma weapon. He stopped, looking up and down the tunnel before resting his eyes on Gizmo. Mia recognized him. It was the guy from the canteen, the one who set her up. On screen, he had moved in closer to inspect the G2 unit, then turned back to go down the tunnel and into the way station. The video went shaky again as Gizmo made for the airlock.

  So who the hell is he? Mia wondered. “Gizmo, can you interrogate the rover’s log and see where it’s been?”

  The video was replaced by a long scrolling list. Mia moved the screen closer to her and began to tap on some of the entries to bring up more detail. The rover departed from MASS HQ around the same time as she and Gizmo had absconded from courier central, and it had taken the same route. It had been following them.

  Mia moved the screen out of the way. “Well, that just confirms what we already know.”

  She glanced around the rover. Even though it was a MASS vehicle it was exactly the same as all the others. They were all made here on Mars, in the factories in the Industrial Sector, as a joint venture between the colony and AsterX. There was nothing to distinguish this one from any of the others. Except for one thing.

  “Gizmo, if this rover left from MASS HQ then their systems will have no problem accepting it back at the main dock.”

  “That is correct. It is tagged for their systems, so it has access to all MASS installations.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s head for MASS HQ.”

  “Very well. What is your plan?”

  “How long before the comms come back on at the way station?”

  “I calculate three hours and thirty-nine minutes.”

  “And how long before we get to MASS HQ?”

  “Approximately three hours.”

  “That should be enough for us to get in there and do a bit of snooping.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Assuming Jay Eriksen was killed to keep him quiet, either he knew too much or stumbled upon something he shouldn’t have, then knowing where he had been in the time leading up to his death would give us some clues as to what’s going on. One thing’s for sure, MASS are involved in it somehow.”

  They drove in silence for what seemed like an eternity to Mia. Eventually she saw the landscape changing as the rim of Jezero Crater began to grow on the horizon.

  “We will shortly be within range to make direct comms contact with Dr. Malbec,” said Gizmo.

  A few minutes later an encrypted inbound comms connection flickered onto the monitor, and Dr. Jann Malbec’s head and shoulders materialized on screen.

  “Mia, what the hell are you doing? Chasing down your ex-boyfriend is not part of the plan.” Her voice was surprisingly calm and measured.

  “I know, I’m sorry about that, but I was set up. Those bastards knew how to get to me, how to get me somewhere they could get rid of me. They sabotaged the rover and except for Gizmo they would have succeeded in doing the same thing to me as they did to Jay Eriksen.”

  “Yeah, I told you Gizmo’s a useful friend to have in a jam. So where are you now?” said Jann.

  “Long story short, we stole a rover from the guy who’s trying kill me. He’s stuck at way station 29. We’re heading back to Jezero.”

  “Look Mia, your crazy stunt has hit the headlines here. I’ve just been hauled over the coals for it. What’s more, your cover is blown, and the council are out to find you and Gizmo. You’ve been deemed a threat to the colony.”

  “That’s bullshit. Can’t they see what’s going on?”

  “No, they can’t, or won’t—that’s the problem. It’s been the problem all along, that’s why I wanted someone like you to investigate.”

  Mia rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry, Jann. I’ll be straight with you, I took this job so I could track down my ex and get my stuff back. I didn’t really believe you about the Eriksen guy. I thought you were just being… well, paranoid.”

  “Welcome to the club, everybody else seems to have the same opinion of me.”

  “Well not anymore, surely they must see there’s a major threat imminent?”

  “Mia, you must understand my power to influence is fast being eroded, and your stunt didn’t help that. Each time I make the case I look more and more deranged in their eyes. As it stands at the moment, all citizens are being called back to Jezero City for the celebrations later today, so everyone’s energy has been focused on that. I’m fast running out of options here.”

  There was a si
lence as Mia contemplated just how much she had screwed up. “Look, someone just tried to kill me. The fundamental question is why? What do they not want us to find out? Whatever it is, it’s got to do with Jay Eriksen, so we’re going back to the MASS HQ to take a closer look at that rover. Gizmo also thinks he can hack their database and find out where Jay was in the sols before the accident.”

  “You won’t find anything in the database,” said Jann.

  Mia was a little taken aback by this response. “How do you know that?”

  “It seems my entreaties to the council have not completely fallen on deaf ears. I have managed to gain one, quite surprising, ally. None other that Evon Dent, the MASS operations director. It would appear he has suspicions similar to mine.”

  Mia think about this. “The MASS director?” was all that she could muster as a reply.

  “His own investigations are being blocked. By whom and for what reason, he doesn’t know. But he has managed to ascertain there are several sols missing from Jay Eriksen’s records.”

  “Well if he’s mister big over at MASS why doesn’t he just stroll right on in and demand answers?”

  “You don’t understand that people like myself and Evon are like great big container ships at sea. Everybody can see us coming for miles and it takes us forever to maneuver, we’re anything but agile and stealthy. Him walking in and knocking heads would do nothing but alert the threat and drive it completely underground.”

  “There must be something we can do. Are these rovers tracked in any way, I mean do they have a black box or something like on an airplane?”

  “You’re correct, they do. And that is exactly what Evon suggested looking for. But we don’t know where it is, or how to get it.”

  “Well, most likely it’s still with the remains of the rover in MASS HQ, and fortunately we happen to be driving in a stolen MASS rover. Maybe I can find a way to sneak in again.” Mia paused for a moment as a plan was beginning to form in her mind. “Jann, all citizens are being called back to Jezero City, what about the MASS guys, and the contractors?”