The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (37 page)

“Status report.”

It’s Corso. She’s come out looking for me herself. I
was too busy inside the guts of the bot to see her coming, even
lumbering and stumbling like she is. I’m impressed that she
bothered to climb up here, especially in a full H-A shell. She has
her ICW ready, but not pointed at me. She is keeping her distance,
though.

“It’s in sad shape, no way to communicate.” I go
ahead and remove the bent 20mm barrel and toss it aside. “One
working gun, but no ammo. I might be able to get it rolling better,
pound a few things back into shape,” I simplify.

“Are you thinking of making this thing an asset?” she
asks, trying to hold back her skepticism.

“It’s cut off from Asmodeus—he couldn’t control it if
he wanted to. He can’t even receive what it sees. No one can, not
without replacing those components.”

“Why not destroy it?” she gets to it. “You can, can’t
you? Or we could, assuming our main gun really works.”

“It doesn’t want to die. Not yet.”

“But it’s…” She can’t find the words. The concept
clearly horrifies her.

“It’s
human
,” I don’t pull the punch. “Human
brain, human mind. Human soul, if you like… It’s as afraid of death
as anyone.”

“But it
has
to be suffering.”

“The human CNS has no sensory nerves of its own, so
it can’t feel pain, not without external input. So without its
former masters to punish it into compliance, this is probably the
first time it’s been pain-free since… well… You can imagine what
the ‘salvage’ was like. I’m sure Fohat didn’t bother with
anesthetic.”

This shuts her up for a few moments, but then she
comes back at me with her venom:

“And you
defend
that monster. Chang.
Everything he’s done… The destruction, the thousands of people he’s
personally killed. And
this
too: If you’re telling the truth
about where he comes from, then he brought Fohat here, into
our
world. Scheffe told me. She told me about the sick
things you said he did, what he made… Things like
this
.
Chang had to
know
. He had to know what he was bringing with
him. Just like he had to know what Asmodeus was.”

But I also know Chang was just a figurehead,
brain-wiped so he didn’t know. Of course, that just shifts all the
blame to Yod. Everything Corso just said…

“It’s going to keep following us,” I tell her. “You
can let it come along, or you can risk the noise of blowing it
away. Sound probably echoes pretty well in this crater.”

I get more silence. Her eyes go far away, scanning
the rims. They lock east, toward Liberty, then she turns south to
look out across the crater bowl as the sunlight starts to slide
into it, lighting up the eastern rim. Then she looks down at our
trapped ride. H-A suits are working clumsily around the buried
treads.

“Simmons needs your help digging,” she tells me
flatly, then walks ungracefully back down to the ‘Horse.

The dig-out took six hours of aggravating, combined
effort, drawn out because the treads would start sinking again as
soon as we tried rolling them out a few meters. We had to ease the
‘Horse forward a hull-length (or less) at a time, continuously
wedging rocks and branches under the treads (Jenovec almost lost a
hand in the process), with the Sleeper-vets cursing in full
disregard of the New-Drop morality the entire morning and
afternoon.

Finally, we got the vehicle up onto a stretch of more
stable ground, but the outlook ahead didn’t seem promising: the
terrain down in the bowl was indeed an unpredictable mix of rock
and hard-pack and the treacherously soft, slushy dust/sand blend.
Worse, the ground cover makes it hard to see what kind of ground
you were on until you were in it.

Even worse, the strain of the extraction did more
trauma to the already damaged suspension linkages. Simmons was
adamant we get some critical repairs done before we tried moving
any further, especially if there was any risk of sinking again.
Even trying to climb back out the way we came in was out of the
question. (Though—as Horst put it—since we were fucked down in the
bowl, we might as well search the bowl while we were here.)

It struck more than one of us that we could go to
packs and hike more effectively than we could drive, do the recon
on foot. But we’d be giving up the protection and firepower of the
‘Horse, and that didn’t appeal to the new-drop coalition, including
our mission CO.

During this ordeal, we could hear but not see two
more flights passing east and back west, somewhere beyond the
crater. Evidently, someone back at base had determined that we’d
never decide to cross the crater, or wouldn’t be able to, having
either better geographic intel or better sense than we did.

Also during this ordeal, the Box kept its distance,
conserving power as it watched us from above. It reminded me of a
canine in the wild, waiting on the periphery of a pack until it
could earn acceptance.

Covered in Mars, we sat in the bay and debated our
options over another unexciting meal.

“We’ll need to scout ahead on foot, plot a course,”
Corso decides pretty quickly. “The rover still has sensors that can
check soil-density.”

“We could just roll the rover out in front of us,”
Horst opts, trying to chew some kind of compressed
cracker/biscuit/something.

“I’m going to need more warning than that,” Smith
counters, sounding as tired as we are even though he got to sit the
whole first half of the day. “This thing doesn’t turn on a dime,
and I’d hate to try backing out if we really hit bad ground.”

“We’d be exposing whoever we sent,” Horst warns the
obvious.

“What’s the range on your gear links without uplink
or repeater boost?” I wonder.

“A kilometer clear,” Horst confirms the gear hasn’t
gotten any better than what we had pre-Bang. “Maybe two, if you
have sight-line. That still puts someone a long run from home if
shit goes bad. And if the mission is to find what we’re supposed to
be looking for, shit will go bad.”

“I’ll do it,” I volunteer.

“Negative,” Corso instantly denies.

“Trust me, or risk your people needlessly,” I
distill.

“I’ll go,” Horst diffuses our head-butting.

“So will I,” Lyra surprises. “I’ve lived on this
world my whole life. I can handle myself.”

“Fit her with a can,” Horst tells Scheffe.

“I’d rather be able to move,” Lyra declines,
“especially if there may be running involved.”

Despite my protests, both Lyra and Horst prep for
their recon in nothing more than L-As and surface gear. Corso is
even reluctant to issue them the tinkered condenser/re-breathers
we’d gotten from the Knights, but Horst guaranteed them on personal
experience, and it would keep them from being limited by the
canisters they could carry. They also take extra rations, water, a
shelter and cold-weather gear, just in case. The rover-bot makes a
good pack mule as well as a gun and scientific platform (luckily
they left most of the original exploration tools when they put
armor and weaponry over top of it all).

I’m tempted to say fuck you to Corso and go anyway.
It’s not like she could stop me. But the drama would delay us
getting out, getting fixed enough to roll. Then I realize my
concern for my fragile friends is tempting me away from the cache
of nukes I need to keep an eye on. Again.

“I’ll be fine,” Lyra reassures me as if she can sense
my conflict.

“I’ll be listening in on your channel,” I reassure
her.

It’s not a very dramatic farewell: They hike out at a
slow crawl, carefully checking the terrain meter-by-meter, the
rover sending us back a safe-map graphic through the link.

“Remember: Two klicks out!” Corso calls after them.
“If we can roll by then, we’ll catch up. If not, hold. If you see
any sign of activity, huff it straight back. If you lose link, huff
it straight back.”

Horst gives her a thumbs-up, but doesn’t look
back.

I need something constructive to do.

“You need some help with that?” I ask Simmons as he
sets up to start repairs on the tracks, his welding-flash masked
under a camo-painted tarp. He looks to Corso for approval, and she
gives him a cautious nod.

“So… How strong are you?”

Strong enough to lift the hull a few centimeters on
its suspension, putting my back up against it. It gives him the
slack he needs to pull parts, swap out what he has replacements
for, and set aside others to field-blacksmith.

I help him in this discreetly, laying hands on parts
where he can’t see, pretending I’m just scraping out the packed-in
muck and checking for damage. At one point, he gives me a
suspicious eye—I think I fixed something he already knew was
broken. I give him back a look of innocent confusion, and I can see
him decide to let it go. He checks the parts anyway.

As we work, I look after Horst and Lyra as they
slowly pace the ground heading away from us. After about
seven-hundred meters, they have to start climbing over the tail end
of the higher slope we tumbled down. Once they crest the top,
they’re out of sight. A half-hour later, their signals start to
degrade.

I take a break long enough to climb up on top of the
hull, try to get a high-ground eye on them, but they’re out of
sight in the shoulder-to-head-high growth. I remind myself they
have a two-kilometer leash. Simmons calls me back down so he can
get some of his repaired parts back in place to test their fit.

Three more hours pass. Simmons estimates we’ll be
able to try rolling in less than half-an-hour, he just needs to
reset the tread tension. I help him, still making small repairs of
my own as I find the need. I get the suspicious eye again, but
again, he lets it go, now almost conspiratorially.

By the time Simmons declares we’re good to give it a
go, Horst’s signal has degraded to unintelligible chop. Smith
figures if we can climb the slope ahead of us, we’ll get it back
clear, so we put our work to the test. Simmons and I climb up on
the roughly-hammered-back-into-shape catwalks for the ride. Scheffe
throws him up some nutrient bars, and he tosses half to me.

Smith takes it slow and smooth, and we start crawling
forward. The ground doesn’t try to swallow us again, but there are
slippery moments that have Simmons hanging head-first over the deck
to keep an eye on his tracks. I’ve got my eyes ahead, hoping to see
Horst and Lyra.

With a few brief but unsettling losses of traction,
we make the crest, tip over top, and find reasonable ground. But
there’s no sign of Horst or Lyra, or the rover. They could be lost
in the growth, but we’re not getting signal, either; no reply, not
even when I try myself. I feel an icy sinking in my gut.

“I’m going after them,” I decide impulsively, jumping
down off the ‘Horse.

You can’t leave the nukes.

I’m not sure if that’s my own internal thought, or
Dee or Yod.

There hasn’t been a flyover in hours. There’s been no
sign of activity in proximity to the vehicle.

“Take Scheffe,” Corso insists, sending her out in an
H-A that Simmons quickly fits with a re-breather.

I’m about to tell her that her Specialist wouldn’t be
able to do a damn thing if I had nefarious intentions, but I don’t
want to waste the time arguing. If she can keep up, she can keep
up.

I run.

The rover tracks are easy enough to follow. They go
nearly two klicks mostly straight east. Then they stop. There’s no
rover in sight. There’s no one in sight.

Scheffe impresses me by catching up as I’m scanning
the ground, running in her bulky shell like a small child
overdressed for winter. I find Horst and Lyra’s tracks. And more:
human-sized, wrapped like Nomad boots which helps mask them. And
something else: parallel grooves, about a meter-and-a-half apart.
Their depth tells me it was something heavy, maybe a sledge
carrying something heavy. I risk a ping on their link channels, and
get it right back at close range. Ten meters further east, I find
their link gear discarded in the bushes, including the one from the
rover, brutally pried out. But I don’t see or smell any blood.

“Run back and tell Corso they’ve been taken. Probably
not by Harvesters. We may be in someone’s territory.”

“I’m not supposed to leave you, sir,” she exasperates
me.

“The tracks go that way,” I point to the crater rim,
roughly in line with Liberty Colony. “So I’ll be running that
way.”

“I’m not supposed to leave you, sir,” she repeats
stubbornly, but I can hear the distress in her tone at the thought
of further running in a full shell. The rim, assuming that’s where
they’re going, is another five klicks, and then there’ll be a hell
of a climb, unless there’s a pass or caves lower down.

“The tracks go that way,” I play the repeating game.
“They’ve made effort to cover them, but poor effort. That tells me
they want to be followed. So: Trap. And you’re a big target in that
can.”

“Your all-black isn’t exactly low-viz either, sir,”
she argues.

“Yes, but I can do
this
…” I show her how my
optical camouflage mod works. She takes a reflexive step back. But
then she follows my rippling silhouette as soon as I start moving
east.

Fine.

“Corso, this is Ram,” I flash back. “Recon and rover
have been taken. We have local company. Hold here. I’m pursuing.
Will check in when I can. Out.”

“I’m with him, sir,” Scheffe backs me up. “He’s
telling the truth.”

Whoever took Horst and Lyra is probably watching, I
know, and probably heard that. I’m hoping they did. But that means
I’m going to be using Scheffe as bait. Big, slow, awkward and
inexperienced bait.

“Come on. Stay close. Stay low. Stay sharp.”