The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (29 page)

“They’ve picked up your signature,” Lyra tells me
what I’ve assumed. I stand out in a small clearing and wait for
them to decide what to do.

They apparently feel secure enough in their armored
beast to come right up on me, right up close where they can see me.
The sloppily camo-painted armored “plow” on the nose of the vehicle
shoves through the Graingrass trees, threatening to run me over and
crush me under tread, but then it doesn’t. It stops two meters in
front of me. (I still can only barely hear the motors.)

The big main turret turns, lowers and locks on me.
I’m looking straight up the barrel of the 20mm gun. I gesture Lyra
to step well aside, for whatever good it would do—I have to trust
in Dee.

An upper hatch unseals, and an H-A shell pops up out
of it, leveling a heavy rifle as if the big turret guns need help
against me. I show them empty hands.

“Come around the back, sir,” I hear an old friend’s
voice through the helmet.

“Lieutenant Horst,” I greet with less enthusiasm than
I should. Another loyal compatriot under the gun because of me.

“Walk wide of the sides, please,” he keeps it
business, then gestures his weapon at Lyra. “You, too,
Specialist.”

I nod to Lyra and we do as bidden. When we get behind
the machine, it’s left a narrow but painfully obvious crush-trail,
tracing its course all the way back to base. I can only hope they
took the time to do tests, to see how long it would take the forest
to bounce back, but I’m sure anyone with eyes above the canopy will
have no trouble at all tracking this monstrosity. But then I see
that the crushed path isn’t completely incidental: There’s a
follow-along rover bot lumbering behind in the Warhorse’s wake,
riding on the same set of flex-treads that we built Anton’s chair
out of, weighted down with what looks like makeshift armor and
crowned with a remote battery gun: a cluster of a chain-gun, a 20mm
belt-fed cannon, and a multiple grenade launcher. (It also still
has its standard array of manipulator arms and tools, so it’s not
just for killing.)

The heavy rear hatch unseals, and two angled armored
doors swing out. There’s another H-A suit in the small airlock
behind those doors, armed with an ICW.

“Inside, sir,” I get prompted. “Both of you.” I know
the voice. The nameplate confirms: JENOVEC, A. He sounds absolutely
terrified.

“You’re safe, son,” I try to reassure, complying
slowly. “Andre. Though I
will
be annoyed if you shoot
me.”

He doesn’t appreciate the attempted levity. I see the
follow-along’s guns turn on us as well.

Between the three of us and Lyra’s gear, it’s a tight
fit inside the closet-sized lock. Jenovec struggles to close it on
us. When he succeeds, I feel the pressure rush to equalize. The
inner hatch opens, and we get let into the main bay, which manages
to make an ASV’s bay look roomy. It doesn’t help that it’s lined
with supply lockers, including the grid floor. The longer sides are
mounted with benches that look like they double for narrow racks
for the crew.

Taking up more of the limited and low-ceilinged space
are two additional H-A suits, holding their ICWs at rest. The
tenser-feeling of the two has Specialist chevrons and a nameplate
that reads “Scheffe, J.” The other one I recognize through her
faceplate before I read the name: It’s Corso. I can feel Lyra take
a sharp breath in when she sees her.

“Glad to see they cleared you for duty, Major,” I
offer less-than-convincingly. “Though we missed you in Iso.”

Corso’s eyes are ice cold. Something’s got her angry
nearly beyond reason, more than my presence alone would.

There’s movement above us, and another suit climbs
partway down from an upper hatch that probably gives access to the
main turret. The nameplate reads “SIMMONS, FDR” and the armor bears
Technical Sergeant insignia.

“Welcome aboard the Long Range Recon Vehicle Warhorse
One,” Corso growls at me, then unceremoniously tosses me a flash
pad.

General Richards’ face appears on the screen, looking
dour.

“Major Corso, please use your software to confirm
this image has not been falsified.”

The screen freezes. She tears off one of her heavy
gloves, reaches out and presses her thumb to the device like this
entire situation is offensive to her. The video message continues,
but she makes a point of not looking at the pad screen.

“This information is authorized for the ears of your
crew,” Richards continues heavily. The time index tells me this is
all pre-recorded, so I’m guessing Corso’s viewed it already; its
content probably explains her self-righteous indignation. (Of
course, everything on this planet seems to garner the same general
reaction from her. Or maybe her face is just stuck that way.) But
the rest of the crew gather intently, close enough to see without
getting too close to the scary monster holding the pad.

“When Colonel Burns attempted to upload his official
report on the North Blade Incident, the uplink was hacked again, we
assume by the hostile entity known as Asmodeus. This time, he
broadcast the files recovered from the research vessel Circe. The
details of the illegal experimentation ordered by UNCORT officials,
as well as UNCORT’s foreknowledge of the existence of survivors on
this planet, are now public knowledge. The files also contained
information that incriminated specific members of the Committee as
well as the Security Council, including Dr. Chandry. Arrest
warrants are being issued. You can imagine the scandal this has
caused back home. But the damage doesn’t end there.

“Also broadcast was the bombing of the City of
Industry authorized by Colonel Burns without my knowledge,
including casualty estimates. I have been forced to relieve Colonel
Burns pending a cross-planet court martial.” He doesn’t sound at
all unhappy about that last piece of news. I try not to smirk too
sadistically. But then he hardens again. “I am taking direct
command of all planetary operations as of zero-nine-thirty-five
this morning.”

I feel the others shuffle behind me. For a few, the
new-drops, I figure this is all very upsetting. But I feel a flash
of silent satisfaction from Horst, Jenovec and Lyra.

“None of that alters the essence of your orders,”
Richards tries to be reassuring, considering what those orders are.
“You are still to attempt to locate the entity Asmodeus or his
on-planet assets and target them for us, or destroy them
yourselves. You are still authorized to deploy the nuclear warheads
in your charge to accomplish this if the situation is dire and no
other options are available. You are still to maintain strict
communication silence, which is why these orders were
hand-delivered to you before you rolled out. However, one
significant change has been made since your original mission
briefing:

“You will meet and take aboard Colonel Ram and his
companion Specialist Jameson. Major Corso, you remain in command of
this mission, but Ram will act as your advisor in the field, while
Specialist Jameson’s knowledge of biological nanotechnology is
unmatched on-planet. Know that the restructured Security Council is
under global public pressure to resolve the Asmodeus threat, and
they have chosen to give Colonel Ram their limited trust on a
probationary basis. Personally, I trust his intentions, and more
so, I value his skill sets. I expect you all will treat him with
due respect.

“Good luck and God Speed.”

Dee.

I’ve seen this before. This is how Dee goes to
war.

If it had been Asmodeus, he would have made a show
out of it. I get the impression this was clean, direct, and
devastating, crafted for maximum political damage. Dee has brought
down governments with a few select gigs of incriminating files,
released publically. True infowar.

And here I am smirking again, like I did this
myself.

But I wonder if this means Dee has “found himself” in
the process, located his core entity still lurking in Earth’s
networks, or whatever his core entity has evolved into in all these
decades. And then I feel foolish at how automatically I buy into
the bullshit:

The original Dee
did
evolve. Into Yod. The Dee
that’s here isn’t really a remote CALO sent to help me. Yod planted
him here on Mars, programmed to believe he is what he “thinks” he
is and why he thinks is. Just like all the rest of us.

Right now, I don’t really care. I’m happy to take the
help, especially if the Earthside idiots are getting hit hard in
the process.

I hand the pad back to Corso. Her eyes narrow at me,
seething.

“Carry on, Major,” I try giving a little. “You’re in
command.”

She turns her back on me without a word and goes
forward, almost banging her head on the hatchway into the next
section.

The vehicle gets rolling again, and the small crew
gets back to station. After a few minutes, they start stripping out
of their H-A shells and stowing them in standing racks at the fore
and aft of the bay (making it look like there are extra armored
troopers standing in here with us like guards).

Horst and then Jenovec unseal first, expressing their
greater faith in me. Of the crew I’ve met, they’re the only Sleeper
Vets unlucky enough to get assigned to this likely-suicide mission.
But Earthside must have been desperate to send them out on such a
critical op, realizing they needed a few guns in this lumbering can
with actual battle experience.

Of course now, every time I look at either of them
now, or any of the others I knew before the Apocalypse, I know they
used to be Modded immortals like me. Either that, or Yod
manufactured them to fill in gaps in his “reset”, recreating those
who had died in the interim because they’d rejected Modding or
didn’t live long enough to get it. Like Matthew. And Rick. And Tru.
And Doc Ryder. (And it sours my mood again, thinking that Yod has
surrounded me with so many convincing copies of dear friends, as if
he’s intentionally reminding me what I’ve lost to immortality, and
what he can give me back on a whim.)

If Horst and Jenovec
were
among the Modded, I
wonder what they were like. It certainly
isn’t
true that
people never change, but certain strong character traits—good or
bad—may persist. Horst is strong, loyal, honorable; quietly
professional yet human. A good man and a good soldier. He reminds
me of Azazel, though certainly nowhere near as shaggy. Jenovec…
He’s young. He does his job, but much of the time he barely seems
invested as far as I can tell. Giving him Mods probably made his
worst traits worse. He’s not stupid, but I don’t get the sense that
he really values anything, maybe not even his own future, so he
never seems totally present in the now.

Simmons and Scheffe, like Corso, are new-drop. I
expect the balance of cherry-to-vet is less based on talent and
more based on making sure they keep anyone with potentially
questionable loyalties (and morality) outnumbered.

Corso is all bureaucrat. An almost comical martinet,
sent—as far as I can tell—by UNCORT to keep Richards in line. (I’m
pretty sure Burns “volunteered” for the same reason.) I wonder how
much she’s panicking now, knowing that her benefactors back home
may all be imprisoned or worse. (Do they still have the death
penalty in their theo-fascist utopia?) She’s probably been
sweating, worrying about where exactly she stands since she viewed
Richards’ update. I’d wonder if there was anything to incriminate
her in what Dee dumped Upworld, but she’s too young, maybe
thirty-five, to have been involved in the worst of it. UNCORT’s
atrocities against the people of this planet are more than twenty
years old. But she could still be caught in whatever backlash is
coming. And I don’t feel bad for her at all.

FDR Simmons: I get the impression he runs this
land-boat, the way he scurries intensely to check and adjust the
primitive systems. That highlights the most striking thing about
this vehicle: All the cables, running everywhere, obviously tacked
down after-build. I hear no wireless signals—everything is running
on hard linkages and hard wires so it can’t be remotely hacked. But
that buys us some serious vulnerabilities.

“How do you run fire control?” I ask him as he seals
up the small access hatch to the main turret.

He hesitates for a moment like he’s not sure he
should be speaking to me at all, wipes sweat and grease off of his
high forehead. He’s tanned and weathered like old leather and
frosted gray. Even his eyes look antique.

“Everything’s manual, sir. You can run the guns from
the cockpit or crawl up inside—there are crew chairs wedged in
tight.”

“How are you going to manage the accuracy to hit a
Harvester module just right?” I point behind my own ear.

“Twenty millimeter explosive rounds will do the
trick. Anything center of mass, and it’s bits and juice. Same for
the seven-six-two chain guns: gazpacho. It burns shells, but that’s
why we packed a triple load of ammo for everything. We know we’ll
be doing some missing.”

“The big turret guns were never made to track a small
moving target, Sergeant,” I warn him. “They’re not fast. You may be
doing a lot more missing that hitting.”

“I heard they did fine against Discs in the day,” he
defends, but I feel him doubt what he’s been assured of.

“Not so much. And they only did what they did because
we timed the shells to airburst. They didn’t have to hit a Disc
dead-on, they just had to blow close enough for frag to chew on
them. The Discs were built for speed and maneuverability. They
weren’t armored. But that took our base AI running the math during
the fight.”

“That’s Scheffe’s thing, Colonel,” he tries to
assure, almost defensively, gesturing at the slim, almost frail
young woman I didn’t see under the heavy armor suit. She glances at
me and gives me a nervous smile before she busies herself securing
supplies. “She’s fast with the numbers. Has a real feel for
it.”