A Wilderness of Mirrors

by R J Johnson

  “I’m out,” he said, releasing the brakes on the aerocycle. “I’ll see you back at the Residence.”

  “You better,” Emeline’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Otherwise I’m gonna need to find someone else to do your chores. Maybe I’ll get someone taller this time.”

  “That’s not nice,” Meade said. He wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn he heard Kansas trying to withhold a chuckle.

  An alarm blared and he glanced up in shock. “Kansas, incoming!”

  The fast attack was a thing of beauty as it fell out of the gray Martian sky and configured itself for atmospheric flight. The sleek silver ship’s airfoils extended to help it maneuver in the thin Martian atmosphere, as it aimed for the scattering band of rebels.

  The ship corkscrewed down toward the fleeing aerocycles towing the stolen cargo containers. The aerocycles were fast, but they were hopelessly outmatched by the powerful Coalition warship.

  The weapons bay to the fast attack opened as three .50 caliber machine guns lowered into firing position. The guns belched flame and bullets, spraying down the area with a curtain of lethal ammunition. One of the MiMs fleeing on an aerocycle was too slow and it exploded in a burst of flames.

  Meade cried out, terrified that had been Emeline’s aerocycle and he had watched her die in front of him. His heart raced as he turned his armbar to look at the status bar of their team. At the same time, he saw her face appear on his viewscreen as she called out to him over the comms.

  “Hey Meade, think you can help provide some cover from that fast attack? I can lead the rest of the MiMs outta this shooting gallery if you can distract that ship,” Emeline shouted.

  He took a short moment to thank the universe she was still with him.

  “Roger that Em, I got you covered.”

  He released the breath he had been holding and looked back up at the Coalition fast attack, which was making a loop for another run.

  “Thanks, and Meade…” Emeline said, looking stern over the display. This time, there was no teasing implied. “You come home to me in one piece.”

  “See you at home,” he said, winking back at the image on his armbar.

  Her image disappeared and he glanced back at the gaining fast attack, hoping he would be quick enough to avoid the nearly certain death currently bearing down on him.

  “Let’s find out what you can do,” he muttered to the aerocycle.

  Meade banked the vehicle up, charging at the fast attack who was still chasing after the fleeing rebels and their stolen cargo.

  He pressed the accelerator to its limit, willing the machine to catch up to the Coalition warship. Meade pulled even with the massive vessel, and sent his aerocycle corkscrewing up and around the ship, hugging the hull in the hopes of confusing the automatic targeting systems.

  It worked. A flood of .50 caliber bullets flew his way as the fast attack changed its vector of attack to go after the more immediate threat.

  Meade ducked and dodged his way through the fire, trying to stay ahead of the Coalition’s computer and pilot.

  He pushed the controls to his aerocycle down, sending the vehicle screaming through the air and back into the canyon where he hoped the Coalition pilot wouldn’t be able to keep up with the twists and turns that awaited them.

  The fast attack took the bait, following Meade’s aerocycle into the canyon. He felt the heat of an explosion flare up behind him and glanced back to see several missiles flying at him.

  They exploded above him in the narrow passage, and several massive boulders began flying down all around him, making the canyon even more treacherous.

  “Jesus,” he cried out. He yanked at the aerocycle’s controls, seconds before a boulder the size of a house tumbled past him. He needed to move deeper into the canyon where the much larger ship couldn’t follow.

  Another explosion sounded above his head and he winced at the narrow miss. By his reckoning, he didn’t need to distract the fast attack that much longer for his friends to get away.

  He glanced back to see the fast attack pulling away and turning toward the fleeing MiMs. Meade realized the captain must have recognized what he was up to and that chasing after him was useless.

  The ship banked up and away, moving out of the canyon and back toward the retreating rebels.

  Meade scowled. He’d hoped to give the MiMs more time to get away.

  “One more twist of the nose it is then,” he said, resigning himself to a second gamble.

  He pulled up on the aerocycle’s controls to chase after the fast attack. The engine whined as he gained on the larger ship.

  The aerocycle was moving so fast, he nearly shot right past. He flared his vehicle’s nose, pulling even, struggling with the controls to stay level in the ship engine’s exhaust. He reached for the bag strapped around his chest and withdrew a square box with two large pipes positioned on both sides.

  He flipped a switch on the side of the box and a panel opened, lighting up with several inscrutable instructions on the display. He looked down at the paper which was filled with instructions. Why did Kansas have to make these things so damn complicated?

  Typing quickly, he paired the sticky bomb to his armbar and activated the niobium magnet inside. He wasn’t the best pitcher on Mars, but it wasn’t he had any other tricks left up his sleeve. If they wanted to keep that cargo, the fast attack needed to be taken out of action now.

  He concentrated, staring at his target. Then, he threw the sticky bomb on the back of the fast attack’s engines and was greeted with a satisfying KLUNK.

  Meade opened the throttle up on his aerocycle’s engines, and flew up and over the fast attack, passing the vessel. Ahead, he could see the fleeing aerocycles as they approached the rally point. The fast attack’s weapons were deployed and active.

  It was now or never.

  Meade appeared in front of the fast attack’s bow and turned, giving the pilot the finger. He turned back and touched a button on his armbar.

  An enormous explosion rocked the port side of the ship as the sticky bomb he attached to the engine ripped through the housing, shredding the insides of the vessel, completely disabling it. The fast attack lost power and was no longer able to stay level or keep pace with the fleeing rebels.

  Meade gunned the engine to his aerocycle, leaving the warship behind.

  Chapter Six

  Lessons Learned

  Meade spent the next few hours to make sure he wasn’t being followed back to the MiM’s headquarters in New Plymouth.

  Dubbed the “Residence,” the non-descript warehouse tucked on the corner of a busy street in E-Block had acted as a safe house and headquarters for the Martian Independence Movement over the last five years. As their operation grew, so did the Residence, which now housed over a thousand people every day working toward a new government for people on Mars.

  Meade slipped in the back entrance to the Residence where a crowd of people were gathered around one of the supply ship’s containers. Kansas, Emeline and several other resistance fighters were busy handing out ration packs to the dozens of hungry mouths.

  Tonight, there was plenty to go around. The remaining ration packs would be set aside the rest of the supplies the MiM leadership had squirrelled away over the last few years.

  The last few months had been hard for the folks in E-Block with many people going to bed without knowing where their next meal was coming from. That was mostly thanks to the blockade imposed by the Coalition and Ambassador Palmetto because of the rebellion.

  The MiMs did what they could to keep people from going to bed with empty bellies, but they hadn’t always been as successful as they had been today.

  Meade and Emeline made their way through the crowd slowly, handing out ration packs to the dozens of hungry hands stretched out to him until he suddenly realized he was standing next to Kansas.

  The old man was speaking quietly with one woman who was shaking his hands vigorously. Her eyes looked tired, and the worn expression on her
face testified to the long days and nights she had spent mining ORI over the course of her life.

  “Thank you,” she said, grasping Kansas with a gnarled hand. “You’ve saved us.”

  “We’re all doing the best we can ma’am,” Kansas said, patting the woman’s hand. “Don’t worry about your children. They’ll make it through the next cycle all right. I’ll see to that.”

  “Gracias, thank you, domo arigato, danke,” the words tumbled out of the elderly woman’s mouth in every language she knew, as she thanked the grizzled war veteran.

  “Ma’am, all I hope for is for you and your children to be at peace,” he handed her another pack. “See if you can trade this for something nice.”

  She took the package, nodding gratefully. She turned and handed it to her son, excitedly chatting with him in Spanish.

  Emeline punched him in the arm as if chiding Meade for an imaginary offense, “Why don’t you ever do nice things like that?”

  Meade chuckled knowing that she was right. Kansas had proven time and again over the years that he was the best of them. For many MiMs, Kansas wasn’t just their leader, he was a surrogate father figure, someone they could lean on or chat with when times got hard.

  That included Meade, which probably explained why he felt so bad for disappointing his mentor today.

  He kissed Emeline on the cheek, “I gotta work things out with Kansas. Meet me later at home?”

  “You better believe it,” she said, her smoky eyes teasing him with ideas about how they were going to spend the rest of their night.

  He grinned. “I’ll be there. Don’t start without me.”

  She winked and he watched her weave her way through the crowds of Martian citizens until she disappeared into another alley.

  Meade turned and moved toward where Kansas was still handing out ration packs to the people in line. His mentor ignored him at first, concentrating on the hands outstretched to him. Meade grabbed a package and tore it open, trying to help speed up the distribution.

  “You were right,” Meade said, handing one of the packages to a grateful looking mother of two.

  “What was that?” Kansas asked, still not looking at him.

  “I said, you were right,” he repeated, a little louder this time. He turned to face his friend and felt about six inches tall. Kansas really had a way of twisting the knife when a guy knew he screwed up. “I shouldn’t have taken the risk.”

  Kansas handed one of the packages off to an outstretched arm.

  “But you did,” he said, his gravelly voice filled with disappointment. “Then again, there are a lot of folk who are going to eat tonight because you took that risk. It paid off today and that’ll mean something to these people who haven’t seen much in the way of good fortune lately.”

  Meade was confused. “You know, you’re sending a lot of mixed messages these days.”

  “Boy, you really don’t get it, do you?” Kansas said, shaking his head. “Son, you’re good at what you do because you take risks. It’s why we’re all still here and not caught up in some hellish dystopian nightmare. You’ve done these people a service several times over already. They know you’re trying to help, but we can’t have you risking everything for a one-time payoff. You’re too damn valuable for that.”

  Kansas turned to face him for the first time today. Suddenly, Meade found himself struck by how old his friend looked.

  “You’ve been lucky all your life,” Kansas said. “Far luckier than you have any right to be. But you’re also good at what you do. Damn good. I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished over the last few years.”

  His mentor reached into his pocket for a flask and took a drink. He offered it to him who accepted it gratefully. Kansas studied his protégé for a moment and exhaled slightly.

  “All I’m trying to do is warn you. Try and teach you a thing or two. Like the fact that luck won’t always be the deciding factor. You may even end up in a fight with someone who’s luckier than you and then where will you be?”

  Meade shifted his feet, uncertain how to respond. “The plan, bringing down the ship the way I did, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Well of course it did,” Kansas snorted. “That’s how plans go wrong too. Your greatest strength is your skill to improvise. But you also need to learn how to weigh risks against rewards. You could have gotten yourself killed today. Hell, you could have gotten Emeline killed. You think of that before reprogramming that ship for its impromptu crash landing?”

  Meade shook his head.

  “No, of course you didn’t and that’s why I’m pissed,” Kansas said, sighing. “Because being on a team means trusting the people you’re working with. You got lucky today. Again. And that won’t last forever. Like I was saying back at the crash site, that big bag of luck of yours will run out eventually. And when that happens, you’ll need all the skill, patience and wisdom I’ve been trying to teach you the last few years.”

  The old man placed a hand on his shoulder trying to reassure him.

  “You’re a good man Meade, I believe in you and trust you to do the right thing. I’m hoping you learn to think before deciding what that ‘right thing’ should be.”

  He rubbed his eyes, feeling more disappointed in himself than ever. “I’ll do better Kansas, I promise you that.”

  “Of course you will son. Because that’s what I expect out of you,” he pointed to the crowd still milling around. “And that’s what they need from you.”

  Kansas turned back to him and placed a finger on Meade’s chest over his heart, “And most importantly, it’s what you know you’re capable of.”

  The old cowboy moved his hand to Meade’s shoulder. “I’m not going to be here forever to clean up for you. At some point you’ll take over as leader for the rebellion. They already look to you.”

  “I’m no leader,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m barely a team player, you said so yourself.”

  “I’m also saying you may not have a choice,” Kansas said gently. “There may come a time when you’ll have to pick up the mantle of leadership or watch this whole effort we’ve been building toward come crashing down all around us.”

  Meade rolled his eyes, “What’s with all this talk? You ain’t going anywhere.”

  “Maybe not,” Kansas raised an eyebrow. “But I like to be prepared. Don’t you?”

  For the first time all day, Kansas shot him a smile. “Get back to the bunk, get some sleep, maybe tell that beautiful woman of yours how much you care about her.”

  He sighed, feeling his muscles ache. Kansas wasn’t wrong. Getting shot at by the Coalition did tend to take it out of you. Something he had entirely too much experience with lately.

  “You’re not kidding.” Meade turned to leave but felt Kansas’s hand stop him.

  “Don’t forget your cut,” Kansas handed him one of the care packages filled with enough food to get him and Emeline through the next month.

  Meade handed the ration pack back to his mentor and pointed to one of the people still waiting in line. “Give it to one of them. We’re still good on MREs back at home. Em might kill me, but I know how much she likes to complain about my cooking. I wouldn’t want to deprive her of her favorite hobby.”

  Kansas chuckled and saluted him with the package, thanking him for the donation. He turned back to the crowd and began holding out more of the packages for the hungry colonists.

  He watched his mentor interact with their people for a few more minutes before slipping off into the night, heading home to the woman he loved.

  Chapter Seven

  First Light

  Meade ducked into an alley way to take a shortcut that would lead him directly to his home on E-Block and help him avoid the Coalition patrols looking for curfew violators.

  Growing up on the city streets of New Plymouth hadn’t been easy – in fact, most of his formative years had been spent living hand-to-mouth, begging, borrowing and stealing his way through life until he became old e
nough to work on the ORI mines and swear fealty to one of the major hyperpowers in the system.

  Except he hadn’t bothered to do any of that. He wanted to live life on his own terms, without answering to the Coalition who killed his parents or the Consortium who took away everyone’s freedom.

  Without citizenship and all the benefits that implied, Meade spent his life living between the cracks of society on Mars. Folks like him were known as Runabouts – non-persons in the Coalition and Consortium who couldn’t vote, hold a job, or even do much of anything besides try and strike it rich on their own.

  Most runabouts became criminals, allying themselves with one of the brutal Warlords who infested the various sections of New Plymouth. But Meade had been raised with a strict moral code by his mother and father while they were still alive. He often thought of the code as the only inheritance he received.

  During the day, his mother would return home from her work and begin cooking dinner while teaching him one of their “Rules.” Then, once his father returned from the ORI mines, he would pose a scenario for the nine-year-old Meade about the rule his mother had taught him that day.

  The Rules didn’t feed him or put a roof over his head, but they kept him from pursuing a life of crime and gave him the ability to look in the mirror every morning without hating the reflection that stared back at him.

  Eventually his talent for fighting led him to the Zero-G leagues where he made a decent living for a few years. That choice of occupation didn’t conflict with the rules. After all, anyone who signed up to step in the Octagon knew what they were getting into.

  And for a time, fighting in the Zero-G leagues had been enough for him.

  But, as the Coalition’s government on Mars became more corrupt and dictatorial, Meade found himself becoming caught up in the Martian Independence Movement – almost accidentally.

  For the first time in his life, he finally felt like he belonged to something that was making a difference and building a better world for the next generation.