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

by Gerald M. Kilby

  “Oh really? What about the bit where I EVA and disable the antennae array?”

  “Look, Mia.” Jann took over again. “I know it’s nuts. It’s a totally insane plan. No one in their right mind would even contemplate such a high risk operation. But we have no other choice. I hate to lay this on you, Mia, but if you don’t try this then we’re all going to die—the entire population of Jezero City.”

  Mia stayed silent, arms folded, shaking her head.

  “Mia.” Jann’s voice was softer now. “Will you do it?”

  Mia lifted her head and looked back at the monitor. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?” She stood up and shouted down into the maintenance area. “Gizmo, get your metal ass up here quick. You’re really gonna love what they’ve planned for us this time.”

  According to Nills, the plan was simple. According to Mia, it was insane, but that didn’t matter anymore. She had put her mind to it, so it was either going to work or, as Jann so eloquently put it, they were all going to die. Already Gizmo had jacked into one of the terminals in the maintenance yard control room and was downloading launch codes from Nills over in Jezero. Once inside the MASS transport craft Gizmo would initiate the launch. From then on it would be automatic. All Mia had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride.

  They had estimated it would take less than fifteen minutes to rendezvous with the orbiting space station, but Mia wouldn’t be staying for the entire ride, and that was where the plan got interesting. She would EVA from the transport just before it docked. And with the help of a thruster jetpack, she would make her way down the central truss to the antennae array, where she would locate the main cable junction, and somehow disable it. And she had to accomplish all this within the next fifty-five minutes.

  Gizmo jacked out of the terminal and spun around to Mia. “Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be. Come on, let’s go.”

  Fortunately Mia’s body had recovered somewhat. Gone was the numbness inflicted by the PEP blast. But her ribs hurt like hell, particularly when she breathed. And since she needed to do this to stay alive, there wasn’t a lot she could do about the pain other than grin and bear it. She ran past the dismantled machines to the airlock where Gizmo had located a serviceable rover. It would take them to the MASS transport ship out at the spaceport, the very same place that Mia had touched down after her long trip from Earth. Only six months ago, she thought. Now look at me.

  They clambered aboard and Gizmo wasted no time in getting it started and prepped. They had begun to move toward the airlock when Gizmo stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Comms from Jezero City, putting it on the main screen now.” Nills’ face materialized on the dash monitor.

  “Are you still in the maintenance yard?”

  “Yeah, just leaving now.” said Mia.

  “Well, hold off for a moment. I have something that might be of use. There’s a strong room a short distance from the entrance. I’ll send Gizmo a schematic with the exact location. Inside there should be a load of explosives that are used in the mines, along with remote detonators. Grab some and take them with you. They could be useful for disabling the array.”

  Mia checked the time. “This is cutting it tight.”

  “I know, it’s your call, just thought I’d mention it.”

  Gizmo’s head tilted around to Mia. “I calculate that acquiring the explosive devices will consume an additional three minutes and forty-seven seconds. It would be approximately eighty-three seconds less if I were to acquire them myself.”

  “Are you trying to put me out of a job, Gizmo?” Mia frowned at the droid. “Okay, go, go. I’ll just wait here.”

  Gizmo charged off and left Mia to contemplate the enormity of the crime that was taking place. Who could even conceive of such a heinous act? To exterminate the entire colonist population on Mars. What demented reasoning could arrive at such a plan? Was it simply the madness of one individual? Mia doubted it. It had to be more than one psychopath let loose. There had to be more people involved. Even if everyone who had a hand in it didn’t know the full extent of this madness, this genocide. And that’s what it was, the extermination of an entire population of people. When she thought about it in those terms, she realized it was not so unique. How many times in human history was the fate of one group determined by the hate of another? Why? For what reason? But these questions were beyond Mia’s reasoning.

  Gizmo returned, carrying a box clearly labeled explosives - danger. It dropped it on the floor of the rover with such seeming carelessness it startled Mia.

  “Should you not be more careful with those, Gizmo?”

  “They are completely inert until primed. Perfectly safe.” Gizmo moved into its position in the cockpit and started up the vehicle.

  The rover bounced and rocked along the well worn road that wound its way to the spaceport at the very center of the crater. It seemed that all roads led here, this being the gateway to the trade and commerce of the colony. It had several landing and takeoff areas, depending on the size and type of craft. The largest pad was used for the big colony ships coming from Earth. These ships could accommodate a hundred people at a time. Huge, the size of a skyscraper, one of them was dominating the skyline as Mia and Gizmo made their approach. It had landed less than a week ago, carrying mainly tourists and officials that had arrived to partake in the decennial celebrations.

  They swept past the foot of the great ship as they made their way to one of the ancillary pads. There were several of these dotted around the central apron. These facilitated the smaller ships, the ore freighters coming in from the asteroid belt, the Earth bound cargo vessels and transport ships that plied the route between the MASS and AsterX space stations. It was at one of these pads that Gizmo finally brought the rover to a shuddering, dusty halt.

  Mia was already suited up and standing by the rear airlock when Gizmo hit the brakes to stop a few meters from the base of the craft. Mia exited the rover and made her way to a flimsy looking ladder running up one of the landing struts. From a distance the craft had looked small and fragile, particularly since she was comparing it to the behemoth that transported colonists from Earth. But now that she was up close and personal, it was considerably bigger than she had imagined. This gave her a little bit more confidence in the craft’s ability to actually do the job of getting them to the space station. She started climbing.

  The cockpit was not designed to accommodate a G2 unit, so Gizmo wedged itself in awkwardly between two seats just behind Mia, who was strapping herself down. Gizmo started talking her through the ignition sequence, which mostly involved bypassing all pre-launch safety checks. Flight controls were mercifully simple, consisting of a large main screen and a small tablet type pad on the armrest of each of the pilot seats seats. Mia punched in the codes Gizmo gave her and was furiously bypassing and muting all the alerts. Then there was a pause as the craft made contact with systems control on the space station orbiting above. The two systems would communicate autonomously, bypassing any requirement for human intervention. Delta V would be calculated along with a myriad of vectors to establish the correct launch trajectory for intercept with the space station and dock. But even though this was theoretically a computer-to-computer communication, its initiation would flash up on some technician’s monitor onboard the space station. How would they react? Would it be allowed to lift off? And if so, would they be allowed to dock?

  Nills, who seemed to know the most about these things, assured her that this interaction would happen so fast that there would be no time for the techs on the station to stop the launch. He neglected to mention what would happen in the intervening twelve minutes it took the craft to reach it. By then they might have guessed something was up and simply allow the craft to sail by, out into deep space. If that was the case, then Mia could be embarking on a very long journey indeed—that is, until her oxygen ran out.

  After a few tense moments the armrest screen prompted Mia to enter the final la
unch code, then she hit the big blinking INITIATE button. Nothing happened, at least not that Mia could tell. But then she began to feel a slight vibration in her seat. It began to build in intensity to a point were Mia was gripping the armrests in a vain attempt to steady herself. When the full engine ignition finally came, it did so with such force that Mia felt she had been trapped in the jaws of a car crusher. Her cracked ribs had hurt before, now the pain was so intense she was at risk of passing out. And the noise was deafening, a violent cacophonous rage boiled all around her as the craft was propelled skyward.

  Thankfully, it was short lived. When the noise and vibration finally stopped Mia found herself on the verge of unconsciousness. She tried hard to focus and bring her body back from the brink. All around her field of vision items were floating in the cockpit. They had broken free of Mars’s feeble gravity and were weightless. Mia thought she heard a voice, or was it voices? Her hearing was shot.

  “Mia… MIA…” Gizmo’s bleatings finally made contact with her aural cavity.

  “What...?”

  “It is time for you to leave the capsule, if you dare.”

  The craft had no windows, but the main monitor acted as a virtual window out into space. In the frame Mia could see the enormous MASS space station dominating the view. They were coming in directly underneath it, heading for a docking port on the near end of the long central truss. The massive torus was too big to fit in the frame, but Mia could see a section of each of its four spokes gently rotate.

  “Can we wait until we get closer?”

  “A little. They have seen us coming and taken control of the craft. They are remotely decelerating us, preventing us from getting too close.”

  “Can’t you hack it or something?’

  “No, this capsule has no interface for a G2 unit so I can not interact directly with the systems. At best I could maneuver it using the orientation thrusters, but alas, we have no flight control. So I am powerless to do anything.”

  Mia sighed. The station looked a long way away meaning there was a high probability that she would sail right past it and out into deep space. But this was what she had come here to do, so she unstrapped herself and pulled herself to the airlock at the nose of the craft. It took a few moments for it to depressurize before the outer door finally opened and she glided out—into open space.

  Mia’s heart skipped a beat as she beheld the infinite expanse before her. Nothing she had ever seen or done at any time in her life had prepared her for the sheer exhilaration she experienced at that moment. It was like being born again, pushed out from the limitations and confines of the physical world and into the awe-inspiring vastness of the heavens.

  “Mia, get ready.” Gizmo’s voice crackled in her headset and snapped her back to the reality of the situation. The plan was for her to take up a position on the outer shell of the craft as it slowed. Gizmo would signal her when to use her EVA suit thrusters to separate herself from the craft. She had absolutely no training in this other than a quick explanation from Gizmo on the short journey here. It was all theory, and the only thing she really picked up was that it was incredibly difficult to judge, as every action would propel her in the opposite direction—forever, until she compensated with an opposite action. So, from where she was standing right now, she was going to be learning on the job.

  The space station was getting a little closer. It must be nearly time, she thought.

  “Now,” Gizmo signaled. Mia touched the controls, and found herself moving away from the transport craft. She resisted the temptation to fire her thrusters again. A little went a long way out here. For a while both Mia and the transport craft seemed to move in tandem, but as its momentum began to slow Mia found herself inching ahead.

  Her initial fear of missing the station completely began to abate as she could see that she was on a good trajectory. She breathed a sigh of relief when she sailed over the docking dome in the nose of the station. So far so good. Then she realized she was also moving upward relative to the station, away from the central truss. That was okay for the moment, as she needed to get past the slowly rotating spokes of the giant torus. If one of those were to hit her on the way through, she would be knocked off course, out into deep space. Her thruster pack did not have the power to compensate for the additional momentum. But the higher she got the more of a gap there would be, so she maintained her focus. Beyond the spokes, the long central truss thrust out into the distance. She could see the antennae array now, its large dish pointing straight at her, and down towards the planet’s surface.

  A spoke swept in front of her. From a distance they had seemed spindly and insubstantial. But up close they were as wide as a bus and probably carried as much momentum. She focused on the next spoke as it rotated towards her. Now that she was heading into its path it seemed to have picked up speed and was racing around faster than she liked. Again Mia resisted the temptation to fire her thrusters. Perhaps if she knew what she was doing she wouldn’t be so panicked. But as she moved further into the track of the spoke she realized she was heading for impact. Mia hit the thrusters and accelerated forward just in time to sense the spoke pass safely behind her. But now she was moving way too fast. Her last thrust had also introduced a new rotational vector; she was spinning head over heels. Goddammit. She was losing her sense of position in space. Where is up, where is down? She had done the one thing she really didn’t want to do—she had lost control. The universe outside her visor spun without reason. Mia calmed herself down and tried to make sense of her chaotic momentum. She focused on what she could see flying past her field of vision. After a few seconds she had determined one axis of rotation and fired her thruster pack to compensate; her spinning slowed. She did the same for another axis and finally managed to stop her rotation. But she still moving away from the space station, not towards it, and she was fast running out of time. Mia fired her thrusters again and aimed for the antennae array. Now she came in too fast, missed the array, and bounced off the central truss. She scrambled furiously to grab on to something, anything. Dammit. She hit the thruster controls again and this time managed to wedge herself between two of the structural members of the truss. It wasn’t very elegant but it was effective.

  Mia stopped moving and tried to slow her breathing. It didn’t help that her ribs had taken a battering bouncing off the station and responded with searing pain all around her upper chest. She groaned in agony. Move. She forced her body to respond and extracted herself from the superstructure and onto the outside of the truss. She found that some thoughtful engineer had seen fit to populate one of the structural elements with handholds. She inched her way forward. The antennae assembly was much bigger and a lot more complex than it looked in the images she had studied on the journey up. But after a few moments, Mia could see where all the cables entered the structure. She took one of the explosive charges out of a pouch on the front of her EVA suit, activated it and wedged it in behind a bend in the cabling. She did the same with a second one. Now all she had to do was get far enough away that she could safely detonate it. She started to make her way back along the backbone of the space station, as fast as she could without losing her grip on it. After a few meters she began to wonder how far was far enough? Nobody had told her, or if they had, she had forgotten. She checked the time and found that she still had at least twenty-one minutes before the detonation of the terraforming event, and the bioweapon that had been hidden in Jezero City. So she decided to keep going further along the truss, that way she could leave plenty of room for error.

  After a few moments of clambering along she arrived at the point where the massive torus connected with the backbone of the station. It rotated around a central axle about fifteen meters in diameter. This section, like the truss, did not rotate, it was fixed. Mia also noticed it had an airlock, presumably for maintenance crew to exit the station and conduct checks or repairs.

  Mia moved around the truss to the underside, away from the antennae. She reasoned it might afford her bette
r protection from any flying debris when she blew the array. She made sure she had a good grip on the truss before reaching into the front pouch on her EVA suit and withdrawing the detonator. This was a small black box with a short whip antennae. She opened the red cover and flicked the switch to charge the unit. A few tense seconds passed before a red LED lit up, indicating it was ready. Okay, she said to herself, this is it.

  She turned the device over, slid open the cover on the detonate button, and realized to her horror that her gloved finger would not fit into the opening. I don’t believe it, she said out loud.

  “What?” came a reply in her headset, it was Gizmo on comm.

  “Gizmo?”

  “It is I.”

  “I can’t activate the charges, my goddamn glove won’t fit through the hole in the detonator.”

  “Oh dear, this is a problem we had not foreseen. Standard EVA suits used on the surface have much smaller gloves than these bulky spacesuits.”

  “You don’t say,” said Mia as she pressed harder, with no luck. Then she looked around on her EVA suit for some suitably sized prong that she could use instead. There was nothing. Presumably the designers had rightly figured that having things that stick out on an EVA suit could only get its occupant into trouble.

  “Shit, shit. shit. I don’t bloody believe this.”

  “Perhaps you could try and locate some suitable protuberance on the structure itself,” offered Gizmo.

  Mia was just about to do this when she noticed a light emanating from the other side of the structure. She pulled herself around to investigate. It was the airlock. The outer door was open and a figure floated out. It was checking, looking around. Mia ducked back down. It moved off down along the central truss.

  “Gizmo,” she whispered, not that she really needed to, as there was no way she could be heard in the vacuum of space, even if she screamed her head off.