by M. D. Cooper
Tanis met up with Sorensen and Reynolds several minutes later. Sorensen was covered in mud and Reynolds was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“You shoulda seen it, Major. He came striding up, all cocky as shit, and then caught his boot on this tiny twig—couldna been bigger than my pinky. Gun goes flyin’, arms are wavin’, and the big man just topples over like a felled tree.”
Sorensen wasn’t smiling. “Goddamn planet. Why’d they have to make it rain so much here? Place is an effing mudball.”
Reynolds slapped him on the back. “That’s progress, lad. Besides, you know the Jovians, once they got a few worlds orbit’n Jupiter they just had to try’n collect the whole set!”
“What does that have to do with how much it rains?” Sorensen grunted and Reynolds merely shrugged his response.
Tanis smiled at the two men and drew some comfort from their camaraderie as the team walked back to the pickup point. It was bittersweet, though, after the massacre on Toro she never felt like the enlisted troops looked at her quite the same way. It sapped some of the satisfaction from moments like this.
Later, after her team had arrived at the TSF’s northern continent HQ, she passed her electronic authentication tokens to the TSS Midway orbiting above and checked her personal messages over the Link.
There it was; the message from the GSS. She stared at the glowing icon for several minutes before finally mustering the courage to open it. She could feel Angela in the back of her mind, as intent on the contents as Tanis.
Major Tanis Richards
References and qualifications accepted. Final, in-person interview scheduled for 3227134.75000 (local time) Enfield Building, Jerhattan, Earth.
GSS Colony Operations
“This is it, Angela.” Tanis kept her voice soft, afraid that the emotion in it would be picked up by some officers nearby. “We finally made it.”
WELCOME TO MARS
STELLAR DATE: 3227162 / 07.28.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Steel Dawn III, En-Route to Mars
REGION: InnerSol Stellar Space, Sol Space Federation
Tanis entered the forward observation lounge on the Steel Dawn III. The windows were crowded with passengers, weary after the two-week voyage from Earth, catching their first glimpses of Mars.
Her HUD identified the passengers and she saw that most were fellow colonists, destined for the Intrepid and ultimately the world of New Eden. Near one of the windows on the starboard side stood Patty and Eric, who she had spent some time with during the voyage.
Threading the crowd, Tanis walked to the window and stood beside the pair. Eric looked up at her and smiled a greeting. Patty nodded and pointed toward the planet.
“You can just make out the ring now.”
Tanis peered out the window and cycled her vision to a higher magnification.
“So you can.”
The Mars 1 ring was a large orbital habitat which wrapped around the world like a glistening silver halo. It was over one hundred and eighty thousand kilometers in circumference, and sixteen hundred kilometers wide. It rotated at over twenty-two thousand kilometers per hour above the blue-green planet. On the world below, the Borealis Ocean filled the viewport, and the large Mariner Valley lakes slowly slipped past the day/night terminator.
Built in the twenty-fifth century, the ring was a marvel of human engineering and provided the energy management to terraform and power Mars. The Mars 1 ring was the gateway to the stars. Without it, modern terraforming techniques would never have been invented.
“Home sweet home,” Eric said.
“Not exactly.” Patty pointed to her left. “You can see the Mars Outer Shipyard coming around the ring over there. That’s where the Intrepid is being completed. We’ll be staying on the station or the ship, I imagine.”
The Mars Outer Shipyard was a thousand-kilometer arc which was tethered to Mars’s second artificial ring, the Mars Central Elevator Exchange, known by the locals as the MCEE. That outer ring linked to Mars 1, and from there massive elevators provided access to the planet below.
Though it was not the largest planetary superstructure, Tanis always found it to be one of the most beautiful. The Marsians had opted to build it with materials that glistened in the sunlight. With all of the orbital stations and outlying habitats tethered to the MCEE it sometimes appeared as though the planet had been caught in a celestial cobweb.
“I can’t make it out,” Eric said after peering out the window for a minute. “You two keep forgetting I have these organic eyes. Not special hopped-up mod jobs like yours.”
Patty laughed. “Well, I don’t know how hopped up mine are; the major has the super eyes.”
“Your tax dollars hard at work,” Tanis smiled.
“So how long till we arrive?” Eric asked.
Eric had only a rudimentary Link to the shipnet. While he could look it up himself, Patty and Tanis already had the information overlaid on their retinal HUDs.
“Just over an hour,” Tanis said.
“Doesn’t look like it should take that long.” Eric leaned forward, still trying to make out the shipyards.
An announcement over both the shipnet and audible systems interrupted their discussion.
“All passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our final descent into the Mars Outer Shipyards, which the locals call the MOS.” The captain pronounced the word ‘moss’. “In thirty minutes there will be two 0g maneuvers separated by a hard 15g burn. We apologize for that hard burn, but Marsian traffic control has busy inbound lanes today and we need to clear the space as quickly as possible.
“During these maneuvers we require you to be in your cabin and strapped down to your bunk, for your safety.
“Mars Outer Shipyard is a class 1A environmental space with 0.8g centripetal gravity and a standard temperature of nineteen degrees Celsius. Be sure to have your customs forms filled out and debark only after the announcement is given to do so.
“Thank you for flying Dawn Transport. To all of you colonists, good luck, and to everyone else, we hope to see you again.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you ladies after we finish docking,” Eric said.
“You will indeed,” Patty said. “We’ll meet tonight for drinks at that restaurant I mentioned.”
“You going to come, Tanis?” Eric asked.
“I’ll see. I have to report in and get my assignment by 0800 station time, but if I’m not busy I’ll be there.” The military life brought her comfort, but the last few weeks on the Dawn had given her a taste of what a more relaxed life could be like. It made the offer tempting.
With final farewells the three left the lounge with the other passengers and proceeded to their cabins.
One of the privileges of rank was that Tanis had a room to herself. She made certain all of her belongings were secure, and lay down on her bunk. She didn’t bother to strap down, but did hold on to the rails along its sides. The ship shuddered several times as it shed all of its velocity relative to Mars. The process took several minutes, following which the vessel rotated and the engines fired again.
The cabin systems displayed a holo count-down and also flashed a warning that the air would jell to help ease the discomfort of the upcoming maneuver. The cabin systems knew her body could hold up the strain, so the nano-injectors didn’t deliver the frame firming nano bots into her body, but it was quite likely Eric was undergoing the rather uncomfortable procedure at the moment.
The captain wasn’t lying; the 15g burn was hard. Tanis’s body weight increased to over a ton and she was pressed deep into the acc
eleration cushioning of her bunk as the ship matched the twenty-two kilometers per second orbit of the Mars Outer Shipyards. Once that velocity was reached, the fusion engines powered down, eliminating the gravity their thrust had created. In the resulting 0g, Tanis let go of the rails and allowed herself to slowly rise above her bunk as the air thinned out once more.
She could feel the telltale vibrations of thrusters firing as they eased the Dawn into its external berth on the planet side of the MOS. Once the ship was in place and latched onto the station, the thrusters slowly phased out until the physical coupling supplied the ship’s angular momentum. During that process the ship gradually fell under the centripetal force of the shipyard and achieved the station-standard 0.8g.
Tanis let the increasing gravity pull her back down to the bunk. It was an experience she always enjoyed; a ritual that had persisted since her first stellar flight with her father some sixty years earlier.
An announcement came over the shipnet indicating a successful docking. The passengers were reminded to remain in their cabins until the debarkation signal was given.
Shortly afterward, the low thud of the passenger and cargo umbilicals linking the Dawn to the station could be felt through the ship. Fresh air from the MOS filtered through the vents. Tanis could practically taste the difference after the stale stuff the Dawn had been recycling over the last few days.
The debarkation signal came over the shipnet and a glowing green icon flashed on the door’s holo display, indicating that passengers could leave their cabins. Tanis took her time giving the sparse space a final check, making certain nothing was left behind. It would give the corridors a chance to clear out. No point in rushing into a crowd of people.
The sounds of other passengers outside her cabin had ceased and Tanis had just stepped into the corridor when another tremor shook the ship. It was followed by the roar of an explosion flooding the hall, forcing Tanis to grasp the doorframe to maintain her footing. A moment of stillness followed and then alarms began to blare. Tanis set her auditory systems to filter them out, only to have the telltale whack of pulse rifles and the chip of beam weapons fill the silence.
In a single swift motion she dropped her duffle and pulled her pulse pistol from its holster. She couldn’t imagine who the hell would use beam weapons on a ship. One shot in the wrong place and it would disrupt the electrostatic shields and cause explosive decompression.
The sound of high-pitched whines and supersonic booms joined the other weapons fire. Even better, Tanis thought, some idiot was using a railgun!
Angela was attempting to query the shipnet to determine what was going on.
Angela’s reply was smug.
Tanis took a deep breath and altered her thinking patterns for combat. Any concern and worry left her as the calm born from being in more firefights than she could remember took over. Controlled and cool, no emotion. Feelings got you killed.
Tanis didn’t get the analogy.
Starting down the corridor toward the remaining umbilical, Tanis listened for the sounds of weapons fire. Most were distant, but the odd snap sounded nearby. She was nearing the fore end of the hall when the deck plate shook with another explosion, this one further aft, closer to the engines.
Tanis ignored the jibe.
The engines were in the other direction and Tanis pulled up the ship’s layout on her HUD, determining the best route aft. If she cut through the galley she could get to the engineering section via service areas and avoid the section closer to the boarding hatch and destroyed umbilicals.
Tanis turned, moving back down the corridor. After a hundred meters, it ended in a three-way intersection. She eased around the corner, checking for hostiles, when the deck shuddered beneath her feet. Her footing slipped and her head jerked out into the intersection, fully exposed.
“Hey! Stop!” The call came from her left.
Tanis berated herself for not deploying nanoprobes to scout ahead. Normally Angela covered that, but with her AI battling the virus that was trying to take control of the ship it was up to Tanis to manage the nanoprobes.
She spared a glance at the man who had called out before pulling her head back. He stood just over twenty meters away, raising his rifle to fire.
“Whatever happened to letting me halt?” Tanis muttered as she pulled back out of sight. She pressed herself against the bulkhead as two bursts of energy lanced through the space where her head had been moments before. Two black patches of melted plas steamed across the corridor from her, making certain she knew just how close the brush with death had been.
The shots were followed by a string of curses and the pounding of heavy boots. A quick listen told her he was running at full speed. When he had to be within three meters of the junction she crouched and launched herself across the intersection, firing her pulse pistol at him.
He wore light body armor and though the shots stunned him, he shrugged off the effect in moments and let loose his own series of blasts. Tanis scampered back across the intersection and resumed her place against the wall. She waited, hearing his heavy breathing just around the bend; neither person wanting to make the first move.
“Get out here, you bitch. I’ll make it quick.”
Tanis looked at the conduits above her and as quietly as possible leapt up and wrapped her arms around one. “I think it’s your turn to stick your head into the line of fire.”
He cursed her again and when she didn’t respond; the nose of his rifle edged around the corner firing wildly. Tanis had pulled her feet up, and though the shots missed her, she let out a pained scream.
With a laugh her attacker strode into view, eyes downturned, looking for her body. Tanis dropped her legs around his head and clamped her knees as hard as she could. The man reached up and wrapped cybernetically enhanced hands around her thighs. She gritted her teeth against the pain, but didn’t let go, twisting as hard as she could in an attempt to break his neck.
It refused to snap, most likely modified in some way. Tanis resorted to plan B and drove her lightwand through his right eye, trying to angle up into his brain.
The man bellowed in agony and let go of Tanis as he collapsed to the floor. She landed lightly a pace away from him as he pulled the lightwand out
and clamped both hands over his ruined eye.
“Yagh… You bitch!” He screamed, trying to get up. Tanis calmly set her pulse pistol to stun and fired several shots point blank at his chest.
The weapon was an Amhurst MK CXI; not the latest TSF military hardware, but still not a weapon that should be in anyone’s hands other than the space force. In addition to energy beams it could fire a focused pulse and she set it to that. No point in holing the ship more than these goons already had. Weapon secure, Tanis ran down the hall, keenly aware that taking out the thug had wasted precious time.
The kitchens were empty; the cooks had left their realm spotless and glistening before heading to the docks for their shore leave. Tanis slipped through the vacant area and into the service corridor that ran aft toward the engineering section.
She heard voices at the end of the hall and cycled her vision through various modes. The metal construction of the ship blocked infrared, but the free radical overlay showed a smudge of radiation moving toward engineering.
They were going to detonate a nuke on the ship, certainly an effective way to destroy the ship and a good part of the MOS with it.
Tanis reached the end of the hall and pushed the hatch open half an inch. She prepared several nanoprobes and felt the restructuring plate on her arm tingle as they left her body and flew into the next room.
