The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are

by Michael Rizzo

  “I can be useful outside,” I reassure the troopers tasked with the unhappy duty, leap up and out of the blown umbilical and onto the bunker roof. Now I can watch the vent caps and the other airlocks while I continue to scan the interior grid feed.

  “Last time they went down and came back up in another section,” Rios reminds.

  “Problem, Captain,” Horst chimes in, sounding frustrated. His feed is showing an abandoned H-A suit in the stairwell by Medical. “And these guys can shape-shift?”

  “Faces, probably hair,” Lisa guesses. “They may have killed a tech in Aux Ops A. They were breaking into MAI, maybe the uplinks.”

  “They did,” Sergeant Jensen lets her know, showing the body of a young blonde poorly hidden under a console. “Tag is Darla Silver. No vitals.”

  “Get a team to check the system!” Burns makes a useful decision.

  “This one’s wearing some kind of thin programmable mask…” It’s Rick, checking the body Lisa left on the deck outside her quarters, not bothering with contamination protocols. “I’d guess it could mimic anyone he had an image of, which is all of us if he’s accessed our personnel records.”

  “Captain Rios! Set up checkpoints, all levels, all sections,” Burns orders, finally sounding like he’s got his head in the game, despite not knowing the extent of what he’s asking.

  “Last one blew his own head off when he got cornered,” I warn, “and their new blades conceal and can cut through H-A plate.”

  Burns doesn’t challenge my interference, though I can’t help but notice two of the bunker-top AP batteries are trained on me, probably just to make him or his up-world bosses feel better. He also doesn’t argue with Lisa as she leads her own sweep team. (I expect he doesn’t realize she gives me eyes on the front line of the search.)

  Twenty minutes pass. Rios coordinates securing sections starting from the Ops Core outward. This lets Anton get into Aux Ops A, to try to find out what they did (besides downloading files I haven’t bothered to mention). Armored teams come out to help me cover the obvious exits. They try to focus on the job at hand and ignore the long-haired black-robed sword-wielding thing on the roof that used to be their CO.

  Thirty minutes. Medical and A&W have been secured. The hangar bays are locked down and under guard. Fire teams start sweeping the barracks sections. Lieutenant Straker gets read-in to start checking her own people down on D-Deck (of course, she isn’t issued any weapons to do so). I’m sure Tru’s people have already been thorough with their own.

  Thirty-seven minutes.

  “Oh, shit…” It’s Anton. “Staley to Ops!”

  “Report, son,” Burns replies.

  “They got into the uplinks. It looks like they successfully sent a virus skyward. I think it’s designed to recalibrate the astro-nav systems on the incoming ships, throw them off. If I’m reading this right, it would bring them in too steep. They’d fly right into the planet before they realized…”

  (But it was suspiciously easy to find, I’m thinking but not saying.)

  Burns sends the warning to the incoming fleet. Anton promises he can undo the damage, but Burns shuts him down, insists their own specialists will handle it.

  “Keep looking,” Rick tells Anton despite Burns. “You know how the Shinkyo are.”

  Forty-two minutes. Lisa and Rios finish sweeping A-Deck, move down.

  “Doctor Mann?” Burns comes on nervously. “Why are you down on B-Deck?”

  “I’m still on Alpha,” Rick sounds confused.

  “Fuck…” I hear Lisa hiss, and her vision becomes a blur. She flies for the nearest stairwell, throws herself down it. Too late. There’s a lot of shouting on the Link. I hack helmet feed that shows me Rick, hacking through a checkpoint of troopers just outside of B-Ops. ICWs try to lock, but he’s using the ones he’s cut down as shields to keep them on holdfire.

  “He making a run for Ops!” Hendricks is shouting. I see blood spray the bulkheads. “I have men down!”

  Then I see Lisa coming up fast on the massacre. She doesn’t slow, slams into the fake Rick as he tries to turn on her. She catches his sword-arm with her left hand and strikes the elbow with her right. The blow is hard and fast enough to sever the limb. She isn’t holding back. Her left hand follows with a spearing action that penetrates up under his ribcage. She’s got her hand inside his chest—maybe gripping his beating heart. He doesn’t cry out—he might not be able to—but steels himself enough to pull out a grenade with his remaining arm, trigger the fuse and shove it in his mouth. (The fact that he still looks too much like Rick is especially disturbing.)

  “GRENADE!!” she shouts to clear the remaining troopers in the corridor, then quickly throws the mangled body back down the way she came. I don’t see the blast because she’s crouched and covered, but I get the full benefit of the bang in the tight steel space.

  I count at least four troopers down as the smoke clears, their armor cleaved like cardboard, limbs severed. The deck is flooded with blood.

  “Ops is secure!” Burns reassures (probably himself most of all). “Resume the sweep. There could be more.”

  It’s Lisa that calls for the medics. But then she looks down at her hands. Both are bloodied, but the left is soaked in gore halfway to her elbow. As she watches, her skin absorbs it.

  “….fuuuuUUUUKKK!!!” she builds up a cry of panic and horror and disgust.

  “I’m sorry,” I try too late. “I should have warned you…”

  “I know!” she spits out, visibly shaking. “I’ve just… never…”

  Thankfully she had her back turned to the sentry cameras. Maybe UNCORT will just think she’s upset about killing like that with her bare hands, give her credit for a sign of humanity, and miss the suddenly-clean hands.

  I want to go to her, hold her, take her away from the suspicious, fearful eyes. But Burns would order my own people to stop me, and much more than that: I know she’d never allow it.

  I focus on what I can do something about, and take a better look at the files the shinobi handed off to me. I’m still not sure if his last word was asking me to take them to his master or telling me he was giving them to me by her order. Of course she knew I’d be here, and therefore her agents would, probably waited until they detected me before they made noise, knowing I’d come after them. All of this—and at least seven of my own people killed—could have all been to pass me the chip. And I know the files could be falsified, the whole escapade a manipulation…

  What the micro-drive holds are communications and files exchanged securely between Burns and Richards. Manifests. Plans. Specs. It looks like the incoming fleet is bringing more manpower and weaponry than we were told.

  Including orbital weapons. And nukes.

  Chapter 5: Extreme Measures

  17 June, 2117:

  There isn’t any subterfuge about the arrival date this time: The relief fleet makes orbit on schedule and without any excitement. (Apparently the Shinkyo nav virus has been completely cleared, though there was some panicked chatter around aborting the whole thing and sling-shotting back to Earth.)

  They aren’t bothering to mask their comms. I can hear a sky full of voices and data. Eighteen ships. Two hundred and forty personnel. Twelve tons of assorted cargo. The flight is more than three times what Burns brought with him in March, six times the initial unmanned drop from last January.

  Eight of the ships carry drop shuttles to move people and gear to the surface (and back, if the Planetary Quarantine is ever lifted), compared to the old-school para-drops that Burns and his cronies needed to ride down here like so much baggage. Six more ships are carrying pairs of the new light AAV aircraft. The freight hulls, once they’ve been emptied, are designed to be added to the growing space station/orbital dock, where General Richards plans to set up shop until a new base can be established on Phobos. (Burns’ people have already surveyed the wrecked original, clearing it of whatever human remains were left after the Discs shredded it.) The plans I’ve seen insist the n
ew structures will be armored, blast resistant, with redundant survival protocols. And they’ve brought more satellites, supposedly to improve communications and help with the planetary survey and search for the descendants of survivors.

  Chang doesn’t make his grand entrance until all the ships have made stable orbit, as if he wants the biggest audience. He also doesn’t go for the biggest target—Melas Two—like he did last time. He slinks (if you can call moving a ship the size of a naval aircraft carrier “slinking”) out of the Catena in his signature dust storm, comes right up on Melas Three from the east. And that takes him past Tranquility, as if he also wants to give us an invitation to the show.

  We’ve been ready to take him up on that offer, just not quite the way he imagines.

  I get a call from Lisa on a proper (though encrypted) Link channel as soon as the UNMAC sky eyes see Chang coming. On the surface, this looks like a gesture of building trust and gratitude from Burns and his up-world masters for how helpful my cohorts and I have been for “reducing potential loss of life” in the incidents with Brimstone and the Shinkyo. He even pinned a commendation to Lisa’s file for her actions against the shinobi saboteurs (if that’s really what they were), and no UNCORT grief about how she was so easily able to destroy two human beings with her bare hands.

  “He’s coming,” she keeps it brief, flashing me sat-imaging, including a projected time to rail-gun range. “M-3. Your team ready?”

  “We’ll be there.” This is the most damning detail: Burns is inviting us—all of us—to come and “help, for the greater good.”

  We make it look like we’ve come too late to the party, letting Chang slide by long before we’re close enough to engage. Then we make sure not to close the gap, taking position in the trench-like partial cover of an arroyo in the valley floor, as if assessing the situation.

  Chang doesn’t waste any resources against us, probably hoping for another opportunity for a monologue and a rousing battle on deck. Watching his flying fortress slide away, its cloud-cloak already thinning in preparation for the big show, his black-uniformed pawns arrayed on deck, I regret not being able to warn Star what’s about to happen…

  …but then I see her coming to meet us, sailing out from one of the Stormcloud’s flight decks on a ride-on flyer similar to what Bel tinkered for us. She sets down a few dozen meters in front of our line, gracefully steps off, her long golden hair blowing in the valley winds. She has a form-fitting suit of shimmering mail under her brilliant white dress, but carries only a simple staff. She stops when she’s ten meters away, and I risk standing up over the rim of the ditch to greet her, though I keep up the pretense of enmity.

  “I am the eyes and ears of Syan Chang,” she announces, then subtly gestures to a diadem she’s wearing, a spider’s-eye cluster of black jewels in the center of her forehead. She wants to make sure we stay in character. I do my best to look completely disgusted with her, assuring Chang that our relationship has been irreparably broken by her choices.

  “You are a fucking whore!” Kali spits back at her, stepping up between me and her sometime rival, not needing to pretend. The others move to support her, a show of solidarity.

  Star ignores her, looks over my “team”, then locks eyes with me. I see her mouth twist into a grin that doesn’t match the pain in her eyes, and then I hear Chang’s laugh come out of her mouth.

  The black gems burst and spread and cover Star in a liquid sheath of absolute darkness, turning her into Chang. Or at least some kind of avatar—I see parts of Star slip out as she struggles against whatever he’s doing to her. Her right hand stays visible long enough to gesture us to not try to help her.

  “You look like the Satanic Super Friends,” the projection mocks lightly, looking us over. Then shakes its head as if confused. “How are you all even here?”

  “We outnumber you,” Azazel tells him coolly.

  “Depends on how you’re counting,” Chang denies.

  “Already bored,” Lux feigns. “Please get on with the big speech. Here, I’ll do it for you: ‘Join me or suffer the consequences…’”

  “No speech,” Chang replies very casually. “You’ll make your own decisions. Whatever you are.” It sounds like he’s doubting what he’s seeing.

  “Then why come to face us?” I challenge.

  “It’s just nice to see a few familiar faces from home,” he discounts, likely stalling. (He’s learning. Too bad he doesn’t know we’re letting him stall us.) The silhouette points to Kali, Lux and Azazel. “Is this Bel’s work? It’s pretty convincing. What kind of mods did you give them?”

  He doesn’t think the three of them are real, that this is a trick, or a “knockoff” job like he did on Bly and Harper. He sounds honestly curious, befuddled.

  In the distance, I hear his railgun begin to charge. He’s almost got his shot.

  “Whatever you are: when you’re tired of being hunted by the scared, stupid people you’re trying to protect, come…”

  His soft-sell gets interrupted by a howl of rage from the sky. We look up. It’s Bly, flying in on his nano-construct. He’s waving his sword at us like he’s trying to rally a charge.

  “What are you waiting for?!!” he’s shouting over the wind and the hum of Chang’s weapon. “Attack!! ATTACK!!!”

  He turns his mount and flies for the Stormcloud.

  “BLY!! DON’T…!!!” I’m yelling after him.

  There’s a thunder clap from the sky, and we see what looks like a falling star coming straight down at Chang’s ship, having just penetrated the Atmosphere Net. The thunder rolls into a train-like rush and rumble as the object burns through the thousands of meters of thicker atmosphere.

  The Chang projection has just enough time to say “Ahhh…” when the star-bright projectile slams into his ship almost center of the cross, blows clean through the hull and explodes on impact with the ground below. We can only see it happen in any detail because of our modified processing—the projectile (probably the size of a small torpedo) was moving nearly ten thousand meters per second. The kinetic energy alone generates enough heat and shockwave to do the work of a small tactical nuke. Anyone on that ship not vaporized by the impact would have been incinerated or liquefied by the flash and blast wave.

  Which is coming our way.

  I see Bly caught in it, his fanciful mount blown to dust out from under him by the sudden overpressure, his body slammed like a doll swatted by and invisible hand, sent tumbling limply through the sky. I lunch forward, grab Star by her wrist as Chang’s projection pixilates and vanishes, and pull her with us into the cover of the arroyo. The wave nearly buries us, trying to crush us with pressure and sear us with heat, even at this range.

  Then comes the secondary wave right behind. The storm lasts only seconds, passes into a wailing wind and a rumbling roar. I crawl and peek up over the rise. Chang’s ship is crippled, blazing, twisted, spinning in and dropping to the blasted ground just beside the smoking impact crater (that looks big enough to swallow the wreck). Metal screams and grinds and settles.

  I look over at Star. She rips the diadem off her head and smashes it. I wonder how long Chang’s been making her wear it.

  “We need to move,” I remind everyone as they watch the smoldering devastation in awe. I don’t know if Richards can manage a second shot so soon, but I’d rather not give him the target. Our flyers come in to carry us off.

  “Come with us,” I offer Star, who still looks shaken. She manages to nod. Kali gives me a glare of murder, gets on her flyer and leaves us.

  General Richards’ engineering team were busy during the long flight. Inspired by Chang, they worked in packed cargo holds and outside in EVA suits to convert one of the mass drivers they’d brought (to sling raw materials from the surface to the orbital construction projects) into their own railgun, then made at least one projectile out of a gutted missile packed with dense scrap. Then it was just a matter of using conventional targeting algorithms and parking the thing geosynchronous over the
ir bases. Once Chang showed them where he was heading, they moved it into position where they expected him to slow down for his own kill-shot. The generous comm-traffic masked what they were doing.

  “Chang was on board?” I need to know. Star is hanging onto me from behind as we fly, much tighter than she needs to, her face buried into the back of my surcoat. I feel her nod through my armor.

  “There were over two hundred people on that ship…” she mutters, still not believing the cost.

  “Fohat?” Bastard that I am, I keep to my priorities.

  “I think so.” She doesn’t sound sure. “Chang kept me away from a lot of his operations, trying not to look like he was… I…”

  “Can you stay with us?” I give her the option, despite whatever drama I’m sure I’m buying.

  “For awhile. My connection with Chang is severed. I can blame it on the blast. But when he comes back…”

  She knows he’ll be back. I can only guess how much damage he took, depending on how close he was to the impact. But Bel’s tactical nuke didn’t keep him down long. Earth has to realize…

  I know they were hoping to blow us up, too. (Would they have dropped a nuke if they saw us in the target? At least the railgun doesn’t spew fallout. But it doesn’t require expensive warheads either.)

  I try reaching Lisa, but she’s not on. Did Burns confine her when the trap sprung? Did she try to stop it when she realized?

  I think about the “gift” Sakura gave me. What else does she expect me to do with it? And how does she hope I’ll repay her?

  Star looks up when she realizes I’m not flying straight away from the blast zone. I’m circling. But not to appraise the damage. I’m looking for