Saving Mars

by Cidney Swanson

  ~ ~ ~

  Jessamyn’s pre-launch training proved both difficult and unpleasant. She consoled herself with the fact that it gave her more time with her brother, whose official function was as the crew communications specialist. Besides her brother and Harpreet, Jess had to learn to work with the payload specialist, a quiet mechanic nicknamed Crusty, and the young captain of their crew, Cassondra Kipling, a woman with political aspirations. “Kipper,” as she was called at MCC, was only four years older than Jess, but within the first week, Jess became convinced there was no world in which the two might have been friends.

  “She’s awful,” Jess confessed to Lobster, who would serve on the other ship, as they walked together after a full day’s training. “She has no sense of humor. I asked what she liked to read for fun and she said stories were for children and that she had better things to do with her time. Honestly, I don’t think she likes flying all that much. I wish you were captaining my ship.”

  “Kipper’s all right,” replied Lobster. “You’ll get to know her on the flight to Earth.”

  “Won’t that be fun,” Jess murmured.

  “Between you and me,” said Lobster, “I asked for you on my team. Took it up with Harpreet Mombasu and the Secretary General.”

  Jess looked hopefully at her red-bearded friend. Everyone knew Harpreet had tremendous influence over the planet’s leader.

  He shook his head. “It was no good. It seems Harpreet put a lot of thought into the balance of each team. She spouted about the combination of hot and cold, head and heart and stomach and I don’t know what else. Most of it went right past me, to be honest, but I left that meeting confident she knew what she was up to.”

  Jess sighed heavily. “I’ll make it work.” She gave Lobster a quick hug. “But I would have loved flying with you.”

  Ethan stood waiting for his sister, already in his walk-out suit, eager to return home. She wondered how he would manage the final week before launch when they were required to live on base. She’d noticed a determination in her brother to meet every new situation as if it were a game he had to win. It made her proud, but even more importantly, it gave her hope for the weeks to come.

  “This extra weight makes me feel like I’m tired all the time,” Jess said to Ethan as they climbed into the family get-about. Like the other raiders, she’d been outfitted with weighted garments which she would wear for the duration of her time on Mars. On Earth, she would weigh almost triple what she weighed on Mars. To accustom the team, the weights were increased every three days; the process would continue aboard ship, by increasing its artificial gravity

  “I find the sensation of weight pleasurable,” said Ethan.

  Jess laughed, thinking her brother was attempting humor, but it turned out he genuinely liked the feeling of being more solidly anchored to the ground beneath his feet.

  Neither sibling, however, enjoyed their daily “tonic.” All crew members were required to consume a noxious mixture of fermented cod liver oil and whey protein, a beverage kept in deepest storage for strengthening the bodies of the raiders.

  “Tastes like it’s been sitting around for the past eighteen annums, all right,” muttered Jessamyn as she sat with her family for evening ration. Secretly, she enjoyed watching her body respond to the increased demands and supplements. She’d always been wiry; now she grew muscled.

  But far worse than the weights or foul-tasting drinks were the flight trials and simulations, which Jessamyn had fully expected to enjoy.

  “I swear it’s like they’re waiting for me to screw up,” Jess remarked after downing the tonic.

  “Well, of course they are,” said Jess’s mother. “Honey, half the board members glower at me every time I show my face at MCC. These are smart men and women who think you can’t be trusted to obey orders.” Lillian shook her head. “You’d better prove they’re wrong.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Earth and Mars approached the positions from which the raiding ships would launch. By day Jessamyn drilled and simmed and watched vids of previous raiding ships as they traced the dangerous path between the satellites circling Mars. She noted the caution with which previous pilots had “threaded the needle,” as they called this path-finding, and she began to see possibilities, ways to demand more of the ship, ways to confuse the satellites. She was terrified and couldn’t wait all at the same time, and one or the other made sleep challenging. She took to hauling a sleep-mat into Ethan’s room and watching the satellites as they swept overhead until, at last, the steady sound of her brother’s breathing lulled her to sleep.

  The lasers weren’t designed to rain terror upon the planet’s surface. The war against Mars had lacked popular support on Earth, and the Terran government had understood that bombarding the surface could only amplify sympathy for Marsians—something the Terran government had no intention of increasing. Instead, they’d placed a series of satellites in high orbit which would systematically strike with high intensity lasers anything trying to leave Mars. The weapons derived power from the sun, so they would never “run out” of ammunition.

  As the lasers couldn’t focus upon planetary targets—something Terran government officials repeated frequently—Earth’s military appeared less greedy for a high civilian body count. Of course, the high body count would be provided courtesy Mars’s harsh environment, they whispered, grinning smugly.

  “Cut off Mars’s ability to reach Earth, and you seal their fate,” Terran Brigadier General Bouchard had said. But Bouchard, the same officer who had ordered the destruction of Mars’s orbital mirrors, hadn’t counted upon Marsian determination, their love of their planet, or their independence.

  And he certainly hadn’t counted on Secretary General Mei Lo, born long after his death. Her sworn objective was a completely and truly independent Mars. For that, she needed crops that wouldn’t poison the population with soil toxins and a way to defend Mars against possible attack. A group of agricultural specialists were seeing to the first goal. By seizing control of the hated satellites, she could accomplish the second. The lasers, once under Marsian control, could be used to destroy undesired incoming ships, missiles, or even the occasional meteorite.

  It was no wonder Jessamyn had difficulty sleeping. Much rested upon her ability to pilot her ship free of the lasers and safely onward to Earth.

  ~ ~ ~

  The requisite number of sun risings and settings passed and the final week before launch arrived. Although they’d been allowed to return to their own homes each evening after training thus far, the crews of the two ships would live on base at MCC this last week.

  Jessamyn and Ethan were awakened by their father, who placed a kiss upon his daughter’s forehead. Jess rolled over, looking automatically to Ethan’s clear ceiling. Mars’s yellow sky glowed softly. So long as the clear weather held, they would launch in one week’s time.

  “Good,” muttered Jess, rising. She was ready for the next step. She hoped her brother was. Time flowed oddly during that final week, and when the day arrived upon which the crews boarded their sister ships—Red Dawn and Red Galleon—Jess felt as if minutes and not days had slipped past her since leaving home.

  The week leading to the launch had felt to her like a combination of graduation exercise, planetary holiday, and funeral. The impression of the latter had been strong enough that, as she sat aboard the Red Galleon, waiting through the final countdown to launch, Jess had composed an impromptu epitaph:

  Here lies Jessamyn Harpreet Jaarda, a Damn Fine Star Pilot.

  During Mars’s first raid after the No Contact Accords, a very brave pilot had destroyed two lasers on one of the satellites before her craft was carved into pieces by four remaining lasers. Having created a narrow window for raiding vessels to escape, Pilot Dorothy Bin Puri was posthumously awarded the title “Star Pilot,” and while Jess planned to survive her flight, she still liked the sound of the honorary title. It had only been awarded once, as future endeavors to take out the lasers had ended badly. A ban ag
ainst such attempts had been in place for forty annums. If there was one thing more important than water to Mars Colonial’s survival, it was her citizens.

  Today Jessamyn’s ship, the Red Galleon, and Lobster’s ship, the Red Dawn, would fly together past the satellite Bin Puri had damaged. Their hope for escape was two-fold. First they would attempt to pass by in range of only the defunct lasers. But a tandem passage through high orbit had never been attempted before, and in preparation for what would undoubtedly be a more difficult getaway, MCC had coated critical portions of the Galleon with cloaking material. The Galleon would stand between the Dawn and the lasers. If all went well, the Galleon wouldn’t be noticed and the Dawn, shielded, would be invisible as well. And if all didn’t go well, then Jessamyn’s piloting skills alone would have to save them.

  When she’d asked Harpreet about sims versus real maneuvers through the dangerous high orbit zone, the old woman had laughed. “The two can’t be compared. In simulation, they spin us around, mimic g-forces, give us a pretty screen to look at, but when the real thing comes—well, you’ll see what I mean.”

  Jess felt the hum of her ship’s anti-gravity as it came alive. She had the urge to hold her breath, watching the instrument panel while seconds ticked past. Jess had badly wanted to be the one who chose the moment of ascent, but MCC insisted upon a computer-initiated launch. Which gave her little to do but watch the clock before her as the digits to the left of the decimal point zeroed out. Once this happened, she lifted her gaze from the screen, eyes wide for the moment MCC passed control of the ship into her hands.

  The Galleon thrust free from the surface and began a steady trajectory that would place her between two satellites, skewed toward the one with non-functional lasers. But no one knew the exact size or shape of the blind spot in the damaged satellite’s lasers. It was guess work, based on repeated viewings of past flights. Detection by the lasers remained a distinct possibility.

  Jessamyn looked behind her for one last glance at her crewmates before they attempted to “thread the needle.” Harpreet looked at peace, smiling softly at Jess. Ethan was too engaged by screens to acknowledge his sister. Crusty was in a different part of the ship. Kipper glared at her first officer—Jess had no idea what for. She turned back to her navigation panel.

  “Come on, baby, let’s do this.” Jess murmured to the Red Galleon. They approached the range where detection by the array grew more likely. Jessamyn’s jaw clenched tight as she waited for MCC to release control of the ship to her. When the moment came, she sensed it as strongly as a blind person might experience a sudden shift to sight. “Woo-hoo!” she hollered. Working swiftly, she initiated a total dark sequence where all of the ship’s systems were powered off.

  There was no engine noise. The only light came from a micro-voltage nav-screen. Artificial gravity disappeared and Jess felt her body’s attempt to tug free of the seat harness. Going full-dark might help them evade the satellite’s sensitive detectors.

  “Don’t give ‘em anything to notice, my beauty,” murmured Jessamyn. She felt a surge of love for the ancient craft and couldn’t resist patting the ship’s wall beside her. This is the tough stretch, she told herself, her jaw clenching tight. Four minutes of dark where the ship seemed to float like a mote of dirt on a Mars breeze. It was almost peaceful, if you could put the thought of lasers and destruction out of your mind. Jess found she couldn’t, quite.

  Two minutes passed. Jess’s fingers, sheathed in tight-fitting gloves, itched as they hovered over the controls that would initiate thrust if it were needed for escape. Another minute ticked by. She practiced clenching her abdominal muscles in a g-straining maneuver. She noted the subtle fluid pressure of the g-suit. Another couple of minutes and the ships would be out of range. A blip on her screen told her the Red Dawn remained precisely where she should be in relation to Jessamyn’s ship.

  And then something very bad happened. The satellite boosted power to the detector array; it must have seen something. Shrill pips from the Galleon’s monitors indicated they would be discovered in seconds. They’d slipped past the dead targeting lasers—would the live ones be able to reach them? Jess knew the answer, although she didn’t want to.

  Immediately, Jessamyn burned her aft engines full blast, hoping to avoid becoming locked by the satellite’s targeting system. As everyone aboard was smashed into their seats by the acceleration, Jess felt her g-suit responding to the sudden and intense shift in gravity. She forgot to tighten her abdominals and felt her peripheral vision degrading.

  Slamming the engines off, the pressure shifted—hard—as Jessamyn rotated the ship ninety degrees. She executed another brief but powerful engine burn to send the ship along the new trajectory. It felt wrong not to be aiming away from the deadly lasers, but this sort of bait-and-switch was her best hope for confusing the targeting system on the satellites. Cutting all power and bringing them to black out once more, Jess held her breath. Or tried to—her g-suit’s partial-pressure breathing made that impossible.

  Are we safe? Jess wondered. The Galleon’s monitor continued its shrill warnings that the satellites were searching for them. She glanced quickly to see if the Red Dawn had slipped through or if it had mimicked her maneuvers. She cursed. Lobster had matched her move for move, which meant his flank was now partially exposed to the live lasers. For several seconds, it looked like the confused satellite had decided no one was there after all. And then Jess heard Lobster’s voice in her ear.

  “They’ve got a lock on you, Red Galleon. You are hot, I repeat, YOU ARE HOT!”

  Cursing again, Jess confirmed what Lobster reported. A laser had begun its deadly work, cutting through the outer surface of her ship, melting a streak across the hull.

  “No you don’t!” Jess shouted. She initiated another blast full forward while shouting to her brother. “Missiles, Ethan, now!”

  He’d anticipated the command and released a dozen missiles which mimicked the Galleon’s heat signature, aiming them at the satellite. Jess waited to see if the missiles would grab the laser’s attention. They did.

  She felt buoyant, jubilant as she shouted to her brother, “It worked, Eth!” Then she cut all power to her ship, hollering to Lobster, “Get your ship out of range, Lobster! You’ve only got a few seconds! You might not get another chance!”

  Meanwhile, the satellite laser ruthlessly targeted and destroyed the Galleon’s missiles within less than one minute’s time. Jess used the distraction to turn the ship away from Mars and the high orbit death traps. She initiated a brief burn to pick up speed and then went dark. There was a tense minute’s silence. Was the cloak providing some protection, confusing the laser’s targeting protocols? The satellite knew what quadrant to search. Before Lobster called the warning, Jess saw the laser targeting her ship’s aft section once again. She felt a boiling fury at the thought of the blackened streaks, the melting metal.

  She fired her engines once again, sending the ship hurtling forward, but the laser adjusted course as well and continued heating its way through the metal exterior. Jess heard an auditory warning.

  “Twenty seconds to hull breach,” said the ship’s audio.

  “I’ve got you, baby,” Jess muttered to the ship, hoping the Galleon could handle what she planned—it was time for something unconventional. She shouted at Lobster to get clear and abruptly cut the aft engines, flipped the ship 180 degrees using the side thrusters, and then fired the thrust rockets well above safety ratings. The ship groaned and Jess shut everything off once again. She felt a blackening rush that told her she was about to pass out. Vaguely she recognized the sound of someone being sick in their helmet.

  A second later, her pressure suit and her own efforts brought her back to full consciousness. She noted with intense relief that the Galleon had evaded the laser, which continued to overshoot its target. No ship should have been asked to do what Jess had just demanded of the Galleon. The satellite locking system was baffled, and the cutting laser shut off, seeking its target an
ew. Jessamyn saw multiple warnings flashing on the panels before her.

  “I know,” she whispered to her ship. “I know. Hold together for me.” She double-checked the calculations she’d made before throwing the ship in the new direction.

  “By Ares, Lobster, get yourself out of range, now!” Jess called. Her limbs felt odd and she suspected she’d see pervasive bruising from the g’s the next time she had a chance to look.

  The Red Galleon continued on a silent trajectory away from Mars, away from the Terran satellites designed to confine her people to low Mars orbit. She heard several deep sighs over her comm-system.

  “Everyone okay?” she asked. “I sure hope so because we are out of danger, people! I repeat, we are out of range!”

  As if in response, Jessamyn heard the laser detectors wail once again as the targeting system locked onto her ship once more, but at this range, the cutting laser was too weak and unfocused to give the ship anything more than an ugly sunburn. The Galleon continued on her silent course for a few last seconds before Jess fired the engines again and corrected course for Earth.

  “Red Dawn, we are en route,” called Jessamyn. “You ready to go grab some rations?”

  Jess heard a crew member coughing, fighting nausea.

  “Lobster, you okay?”

  And then, with a certainty that didn’t require checking her instrument panel, Jessamyn knew what had just transpired. Her mouth filled with a metal taste which she tried to swallow away. She felt the void created by the Red Dawn’s absence. She had no need to search the skies for dismembered pieces spinning away from one another. She knew the truth. They were gone. All dead.

  Chapter Eight

  WE ARE SMALL CREATURES

  No!

  Her mind pushed back, hard against the insistent fact: the Red Dawn was no more.

  It’s a mistake, thought Jessamyn. And weren’t mistakes things you went back to fix? You gathered the pieces together, put everything back where it ought to be, and said, “Let’s try that again, shall we?”