The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN

by Michael Rizzo

9 October, 2115:

  I wake up back in my own rack, and I have a lot of company wedged into my small quarters.

  “We recovered this from the colony after we secured it,” Paul starts. He’s sitting at the foot of my bunk, and he shows me he’s brought the sword Hatsumi gave me. “It’s been scanned. No surprises.”

  I reach up to take it and see the heavy bandages on my forearms. They ache, but my hands seem to work. I lay the weapon across my lap and try to sit up a bit more. I feel burning pain deep into my right hip. My head swims from whatever they gave me while they closed my wounds.

  “So how did having large metal testicles get equated with bravery?” Paul asks, in way of making a joke.

  “It should be equated with stupidity,” Matthew chimes in, standing by the hatch, arms crossed. “Not the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, Mikey, but it definitely makes the top five.”

  I expect to see Zauba’a giving him some kind of death-glare, kneeling at my bedside like one of Hatsumi’s personal guard. But she keeps her eyes down, almost sheepishly.

  “The ETE are indebted to you, Colonel,” Simon offers as a way of rolling over Matthew’s flippancy.

  “I don’t remember it going particularly smoothly…” I deflect.

  “We were able to find Hatsumi’s colony destroyer,” Paul gives me happily. “We estimate a full kiloton yield—four times the tactical warheads he used on the surface. And someone did try to trigger it remotely, but we had it masked in time.”

  “The triggering attempt coincided with the instant your ASV flew clear,” Lisa lets me know, standing in the corner behind the Stilsons. “Whoever was charged with blowing the place may have watched and waited until you were safe.”

  “If it was Sakura, it’s probably because she wanted another crack at us in person,” I speculate drowsily, glancing at Zauba’a, who still does not look up.

  “Or they had other reasons,” Simon gives me back gravely, letting me know he’s been paying attention to my lessons.

  “Like giving me a sword that really is just a sword,” I play. “I could make myself crazy figuring out all the possible reasons for that one.”

  “Or Hatsumi walking into that room fully planning on not walking out,” Matthew stokes the subject. I decide to change it:

  “Your people didn’t all walk away unscathed,” I confront Paul and Simon as gently as I can. “I saw…”

  “You did,” Paul confirms solemnly. “They came at us in surprising numbers, and did things we did not expect…” He seems to stall on the words.

  “You were shot,” I remind him needlessly. “They had bullets that could get through your Sphere fields.”

  “It was an unexpectedly inventive two-stage system,” Simon explains as objectively as he can. “They must have managed to analyze our fields during previous encounters. When the shell hit the shield field, its outer shell detonated, forcing an ionized core through the field. Each core was then frangible upon penetration to maximize trauma and slow the healing process. The effectiveness of their gunfire was both unexpected and withering. It wasn’t lethal, but it gave them an opening.”

  “We have since recalibrated our fields to counter this advantage,” Paul interjects like he’s telling me about some minor mechanical problem.

  “We tried to dissolve their weapons,” Simon continues over him, “but they would charge us in twos, guessing that our bond-breakers would not penetrate a living body if set to attack inorganic matter only. One Shinobi would act as a shield for the other, even though it meant bare-skin exposure. And even naked, they were not hesitant in using grenades to stun us. Not all of us were quick enough to shift to acceptable offensive measures—using blunt pressive shock to batter them.”

  “Your reluctance to do harm,” I interject, hoping it sounded more like validation than criticism.

  “Your lessons were invaluable,” Simon allows, “but you were right about there being no substitute for experience. We were no match for the Shinobi at close quarters. Their blades did damage that their guns could not, even given our upgrades. Nine of our people sustained cuts severe enough to cost them parts of limbs. One—Dawson Epps from Green Team—was nearly cut in half.”

  “All are in rebuilding,” Paul tries to soothe, “what was lost can be replaced.”

  “I saw the Shinobi retreating,” I challenge. “Can they profit from what they managed to take from you?”

  “We can’t be certain,” Simon admits after a pause. “We also lost several tools. They should be useless, but the Shinkyo have proven themselves to be impressively resourceful.”

  “And they’ve left us with other problems,” Paul lets me know heavily. “Although the scattered Shinobi successfully fled into the hills while we were focused on stopping their colony self-destruct, they did leave over three hundred apparently non-military colonists behind. They have not offered resistance, but they remain under our supervision.”

  “Most are women, children, elderly or physically fragile—the few able-bodied adults appear to be workers or low-level technicians,” Lisa catalogues. “They have no apparent weapons, but at least some are likely to be Shinobi planted to serve as insurgents, so the situation is far from secure.”

  “This number is only a third of the population we had originally estimated,” Simon reminds. “The colony has also been stripped of manufacturing equipment, and their stores appear to be gutted. All of their files have been erased. It’s clear they have relocated somewhere, leaving behind what could only be described as sacrifices.”

  “Including Hatsumi,” I point out.

  “Hatsumi had a metastasized cancer eating him alive,” Lisa tells me. “The Shinkyo didn’t have cancer-killer nano-cultures.”

  “It may be what he wanted from us,” Paul tries.

  “I don’t think so,” I disagree. “He was too much about the greater benefit of his precious corporate guild. And I doubt he’d want his Shinobi to know he was that sick. They’d have replaced him.”

  “Maybe they did,” Matthew considers. “Maybe that was the point.”

  “Halley looked at the autopsy scans your teams sent us,” Lisa tells the Stilsons. “He was too far gone for anything short of your regenerating technology, and he wouldn’t have had the time for his people to adapt it even if they could take it from you.”

  “He knew he was dead,” Matthew concurs, reinforcing his point. “He just wanted to go out in a scrap. Better in a fight than in a bed.”

  I glance again at Zauba’a, who remains still as a statue.

  “We should have advanced on them sooner,” Simon grumbles. “We gave them too much time to prepare.”

  “Time you needed to prepare,” I remind him. “Things could have gone much worse.”

  “The one signal was the only detected attempt to trigger the self-destruct,” Lisa continues updating me. “Hatsumi wasn’t wired to do it—we checked his implanted Link gear, and there was no detonation program. Either he wasn’t in charge anymore or specifically wanted someone else to pull the trigger—maybe he did figure he’d be dead before the time was right. And he lied about the facility being laced with sensors to set the bomb off if the ETE used their Spheres inside.”

  “Delaying tactics,” I calculate grimly. “First he slows you down by making you afraid to use your tools effectively. Then he leaves us to try to find his last bomb—waiting to detonate meant more time for his Shinobi to make their escape while we were all focused on finding the bomb instead of chasing them down. Leaving a few hundred apparent innocents behind in the colony made doubly sure the bomb had our attention—he trusted that you wouldn’t abandon those people to die.”

  “The ones left behind, they will not talk to us,” Paul complains. “We cannot even know if they were abandoned to their fate or volunteered for it.”

  “The Shinkyo seem adept at profiting no matter which way a battle goes,” I allow after a deep breath. “I did confront Hatsumi about the obvious conundrum: Telling me his people have been tryin
g to maintain some kind of secret R&D in hopes of giving their sponsor corporations an edge when they come back—assuming they’re still even in business to come back—and then blatantly revealing themselves by attacking us. He didn’t even blink when I pointed out that his use of nuclear weapons would be detected from Earth. He knew their efforts to stay hidden all these decades would be wasted when he decided to attack.”

  “Blowing up the colony could have been a convincing way to disappear again,” Paul reasons. “Without the colony, there’s no proof at all of what they’ve been up to.”

  “But he would have considered the outcome of us beating his last bomb and having the colony intact to show to Earthside,” I counter. “That may even have been his ideal outcome.”

  “And how does he win from that?” Simon criticizes. “The Guild corporations—assuming they still exist—would be scandalized to be associated in any way with what the Shinkyo were doing here.”

  “But they took the hard evidence and vanished,” Lisa reminds him. “They could argue that they were a colony of innocent refugees just trying to survive.”

  “Worse,” I let them know what I’m thinking. “They’ve left you as an occupying force. How will that make you look to Earth?”

  Lisa and Matthew hang back after Paul and Simon take their leave.

  “Are you thinking about making the ETE an offer to take over the policing of the colony?” Lisa asks before Matthew can.

  “No,” I tell them flatly. “We’re spread thin enough between holding our two bases and planning our little expedition north to set up Anton’s transmitter. We don’t have the resources to take care of an extra three hundred bodies, even if we could trust they had no hostile intent.”

  “Which isn’t likely,” Matthew agrees.

  “We’d have to use lethal force to deal with even the slightest insurgency, especially given the suicidal tenacity we’ve already seen out of them. I think that alone would make the ETE unwilling to let us try.”

  “But maybe we could make an agreement with them,” Lisa offers. “They stand down and let us take over as soon as we can get reinforced. In the meantime, we keep working side-by-side.”

  “I think Paul got bent enough when I had to use deadly force in our little joint skirmish,” I let them know. “They’re not going to be comfortable with us in situations like that. They’d have to put as much energy into making sure we don’t kill anybody as making sure the Shinkyo don’t.”

  “So they wouldn’t want to leave Shinkyo to us even if we were operating with max support,” Matthew takes it. Lisa looks uncomfortable. I can only shake my head, and so does Matthew. “You’re right: Hatsumi gets to stick it to the Power Rangers—and us in turn—no matter which way it falls.”

  Zauba’a remains a seated statue after we’re finally left alone, her eyes glued down at her crossed ankles.

  “What Hatsumi said about your father,” I finally try. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

  I can hear her breathing coming heavier.

  “Apparently it matters to me,” she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper. “Enough that Hatsumi could manipulate me. Enough that my anger interfered with your mission.”

  “Hatsumi told me all he was going to,” I try to reassure. “And likely everything he said was manipulative half-truth.”

  “He did not lie about my father. My grandfather.”

  “That doesn’t diminish you,” I insist. “And I have no right to judge him.”

  “Incest is a fact of survival among many tribes,” she says matter-of-factly, then goes dark again. “That does not mean it is accepted practice. I understand the reasons for the taboo, and the stain upon those that break it. So did my father. We were outcast for it, untouchable. My mother and I only had value because we were weapons, but we were always less than human no matter how well we served.”

  “It doesn’t change how I value you, Sakina,” I tell her. But I almost immediately realize I’m lying: I do see her differently now, but only because I think I’ve seen more of what’s shaped her, what she’s lived with. Before I was a soldier I was briefly a social worker—it’s what I went to school for—and I saw children who lived with incest and sexual abuse who thought it was normal—who were taught it was normal—until they collided with larger society and were shocked to find they’d been victim (or sometimes willing participant, at least in their own eyes) to an abomination. The damage to their developing identities was devastating, the stigma scarring everything they were and would be.

  “You told me you had done evil things,” she gives me back after a few moments of silence. “I have not seen this in your history.”

  I realize she’s reaching out, trying to connect. Warriors comparing scars.

  “My ‘history’ was created by my handlers when I agreed to work for UNACT,” I tell her. “Mike Ram is a manufactured hero, a public face on what they called their ‘Ratings War.’ I served as propaganda more than as a weapon. Do you understand?”

  She shakes her head slowly, but it isn’t an absolute denial—her breathing and posture betray that.

  “It was an ugly war even as wars go,” I continue. “The violence was personal and cruel, the enemy righteous in their viciousness. I did things… The only way I’m different from them is that I only preyed on those who would specifically harm the innocent, but I repaid atrocity with atrocity. I never cut an enemy’s genitals off, but I’ve been tempted, and I’ve certainly gone beyond what was required of me professionally.”

  I sit up in bed—careful of the heavy dressing I find I have taped over my right hip—and slowly pivot my legs over the edge so I can sit up facing her. The effort winds up placing her kneeling at my feet, but I no longer feel confident (especially with how deep my hip wound appears to be) with my original plan of getting down and sitting with her on her bed roll.

  “There was this one…” I give her softly. “A father had put a bomb on his young daughter and sent her to blow up a café full of innocent people. She was thirteen years old. I couldn’t stop her in time, so I had to shoot her down before she could get to her target. I had to kill a child to save dozens of others. I was about your age at the time, and I was still very new at killing. Then I went to visit her father. He was watching a video of the two of them celebrating her pending martyrdom, and he was praying. I shot away both his kneecaps, then sat down and explained to him with his own scripture—the Holy Quran—why he was wrong about his God. But all he cared about was that everyone who didn’t believe the way he did would burn in hell. He had made God an excuse to take out his rage on the world, and made his own child his willing weapon. He had no remorse, no regret, only sick satisfaction. I set him on fire.”

  We sit silently for a long time. Zauba’a doesn’t look up once.

  “I barely knew my father,” she says very quietly. “I was young when he left, and my mother didn’t speak of him after he was gone. My mother was my teacher. She became Hassim’s father’s personal guard, and she also sometimes shared his bed, even though she was never made his wife. I do not believe Hassim knows who I am now; he probably thinks that little girl died long ago. My mother died defending his father, and he did not seem to miss her. He told me he would keep me to perhaps be his guard one day, or his son’s guard, but I left, disappeared during one of the battles with Farouk. I spent five more years training, living on my own, fighting when I had need or opportunity, before I presented myself to Farouk, defeating his best fighters. I do not really know if I chose Farouk because I bore a grudge against Abbal Hassim, but I admit feeling satisfaction in eliminating some of his best warriors, hurting him.”

  “What did you feel when you killed Farouk?” I ask as objectively as I can. She takes a few deep breaths, then finally meets my eyes.

  “I held hope for some small redemption, for righting a wrong. But…” She looks away again.

  “But you don’t feel any better,” I finish when she can’t. “I can’t tell you that anything you do will era
se what guilt you might feel for your past actions, or the shame you feel has marked you. Just know that I accept you as you are, Sakina, and I’m grateful to have you with me.”

  She doesn’t respond except to barely nod her head. Then she deflects: “Your wounds are significant. You should rest.”

  I don’t argue. I get dizzy just trying to stand, and my arms and hip burn and ache under their dressings.

 

  When I awake in the dark some hours later, I feel her body curled up against mine, her head on my shoulder, her hand on my heart. She’s taken off her armor, her weapons, but still wears her sealsuit.

  I’m careful not to wake her.

  Chapter 4: Lessons from the Insurgency