The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds (14 page)

“I read the research,” I let her know she doesn’t
have to pad things.

“The metabolic slowdown appears to have been held
steady at ten percent throughout our sleep. That also explains our
long rehab: to our bodies, we’d been unconscious and immobile for
five years. That’s a rough experience, even at low-G, but our
younger crew seems to have made a mostly full recovery.”

“Mostly?”

“The brain ages worse in these equations. Neurons
suffer more than other cells from slowed metabolism. While there
are no cases of significant brain damage, there
is
what I
would call brain
aging
. What that means is that a lot of us
will likely see the early signs of dementia come on a decade or
more before it naturally would have. The good news is that even
Earthside’s current nano-free medicine can go a long way to offset
those effects.”

“Assuming Earthside is willing to send said
supplies,” I counter without thinking.

“Do you think they’d withhold necessary medications
to ensure our cooperation?” she runs with it before I can defuse my
comment. Still, I find the most convincing I can manage is to shrug
it off.

I automatically begin to run down the list of
dementia symptoms I remember from my pre-UNACT college days:
Problems with attention, functional memory, disorientation, labile
mood, depression, psychosis. I realize how most of the above could
just as well be due to our situation, what we’ve been through and
continue to go through in terms of all the stress and depravation
we’re enduring. But now I have the nagging question: have we missed
something degenerative and irreversible?

“What about the children?” I shift the subject to ask
about Tru’s concerns.

“Earthside insists they should start developing
normally again,” she tells me, though not sounding convinced. “And
we’re already seeing that. But they’ve bought themselves a longer
childhood, which means they’re more resilient than the adults and
will probably live longer. I’ll keep sending the Earthside team
regular updates.”

“What’s the bad news?” I press when she
hesitates.

“Us older farts didn’t fare as well,” she admits
after a long breath. “The natural aging process was exacerbated to
different degrees in each of us. It’s manifested as organ damage,
neurological degradation, musculoskeletal degeneration, vascular
decline…”

“Brain damage?” I want to know, back around to the
subject of dementia.

“Nothing serious,” she tries to assure.
“Micro-scarring. Might account for minor memory loss, reduced
attention span, irritability, mood changes, some confusion. All
normal, given our adjusted brain age.”

I feel numb all of a sudden, shaky.

“Doctor, in your opinion, could this affect my
ability to make command decisions?” I have to ask, hit by a flood
of doubt about my behavior for the last fifteen months. She gives
me a slight smile.

“No, Colonel. And take that from the Earthside
medical team. Scans and tests say you’ve managed to come through in
remarkably good shape for your adjusted age.”

I’m not feeling any better. “Who
hasn’t
fared
so well?”

She doesn’t answer immediately.

“Doctor Mann is showing signs of peripheral
neuropathy, which is likely to get worse. That means tremors, pain,
numbness, decreased coordination. Doctor Ryder shows signs of mood
instability. Colonel Ava is showing early signs of cardiovascular
disease, and her cancer risk factors are high—but that’s all common
for her age. You and I both show signs of degenerative arthritis
and arteriosclerosis.”

“And Colonel Burke?” I push her when she leaves him
out of her roster. Her eyes go to her desk screen, like she’s
trying to distance herself by referring to the test results that
scroll in front of her.

“He didn’t want you to know,” she admits. “He’s
suffering from a metastasized osteo-sarcoma. It started in his bone
marrow, possibly a reaction to the skeletal building supplements.
It was treatable when we went to sleep, but it got a foothold even
while we were put out. Now it’s everywhere: lungs, liver, pancreas…
The anti-cancer drugs I’ve got stocked are keeping it controlled,
but he’s too weak to get remission.”

I expected this—I remind myself of that—but it still
hits me like I’ve been shot.

“And Earthside doesn’t have any cure for this?” I ask
her, already sure of the answer.

“Not since they abandoned nano-medicine,” she
confirms with an edge of frustration. “I hate to point it out, but
the only people who would be able to do anything about this are the
ETE, assuming they maintained the research that eventually led to
their current hybridizing nanotech.”

“Which they haven’t been willing to share,” I point
out the obvious.

“You’ve been doing them a lot of favors, Colonel,”
she reminds me of the obvious. “You’d think a little reciprocity
would be forthcoming.”

“You think Matthew would accept their nanotech if
they offered?” I counter.

“No,” she admits. “I actually had this conversation
with him already. But he’s getting sicker. Weaker. And he’s
probably in a significant amount of pain even though he won’t admit
it. I was hoping his symptoms would change his mind.”

I shake my head. “It’s likely a pointless
conversation, but I’ll have a talk with the ETE. Even if Matthew
stays stubborn, maybe they can help the rest of us.”

“Be careful, Colonel,” she suddenly gets edgy. “I
don’t want to think about how Earthside would react if our senior
command were suddenly implanted with ETE nanotech. I agree that
Colonel Burke’s condition is too serious to worry about that, but
I’ve been communicating back and forth with the UNCORT scientists;
they’re a scared lot, Colonel. DNA manipulation and biological
nanotech are world-ending plagues to them—it doesn’t matter how
safe the ETE can prove they are. And that means they’ll never
embrace the ETE, no matter what the diplomats say. They’re wound
enough just about the idea that we’ve been in close proximity to
the ETE, not to mention the ETE messing with our Hiber-Sleep. I
expect every one of us to be put through a hell of a screening
process before anyone from home has any contact with us. If it does
turn out we’ve actually been implanted with ETE nanotech…
well…”

“I understand,” I allow her, my own frustration
building toward rage. “Matthew has the choice between dead and
pariah, assuming the ETE will even consider it.” I cover my face
with my hands and shut my eyes and breathe through my fingers. Then
I ask the one question I really don’t want answered. “How long has
he got?”

Halley checks her charts again, deferring the answer
to her diagnostic machines.

“I expect I can keep him stable for another three
months. After that, I’m out of the drugs I need. He’ll start
declining within a month, and he probably won’t be fit for duty
within another month. After that, it could be weeks or months. Even
if Earthside sends me more meds, the damage will be done before
they get here. I’m sorry.”

I do my spin time. It’s probably my imagination, but
I think I can feel the arthritis that Halley warned me about. I go
back to my quarters and let Sakina give me a massage, then I
surprise both of us by initiating sex in the middle of the
afternoon. I stay with her for the rest of the day.

I don’t speak with Matthew.

I don’t call the ETE.

6 April, 2116:

The alarms go off at 04:30.

I wasn’t asleep. I doubt Sakina was either.

She pulls her armor on without saying a word. My Link
is feeding me sitrep in realtime as I get my own on.

Radar detected amorphous shadows, almost
indistinguishable from the dust blow. Then we started registering
breach attempts on several of our external hatches. Our H-A
troopers responded, only to come under small arms fire. Then
something bigger started to pound them. I recognized the sound of
those cannons immediately.

“Back into the bunkers,” I order as I jog up to
Command Ops. “Put guns on all access points.”

“Rules of engagement, sir?” Thomas comes on Link to
ask me, sealing up her own H-A.

“Defend this installation,” I confirm.

“Understood, Colonel.”

“Captain Kastl,” I call as soon as I cycle through
the lock into Ops. “Do we have a lock on the Dutchman?” I see a hit
on the concrete of the Air Command Tower that manages to take a
meter-wide divot out of the northern shield wall.

“Minimal radar profile, two thousand meters
north-northwest,” Kastl shows me on the holo-map. “Still too dark
for visual confirmation, but MAI matched the sound of those guns to
the Zodangan homemade SRF cannons. You want battery response?”

“Get me any visual you can,” I tell him. “Catch ‘em
lighting themselves up with their own cannon flash. Or at least a
reasonable heat image. I need a picture.” Kastl gets me what I want
as soon as they fire at us again: the big Zodangan airship—looking
like a capsized three-masted frigate with its distinctive
under-hull sails—giving us a full broadside from over a mile away.
Then I key up a call to the obvious people.

Council Blue—or at least the mask and the
sealsuit—comes up on my screen quite a bit faster than
anticipated.

“Council, I’ve got visitors,” I tell him, patching
him the fuzzy but recognizable image of the Dutchman, lit up
against the pitch-dark sky by its own cannon flash. I hear another
series of booms and feel metal slam our bunkers again in a dozen
places. “Thought I’d give you a shout in good faith before shooting
them down myself.”

“Take a look at this, Colonel,” Mark Stilson returns,
flashing me his own image of the Dutchman—or something that looks
very similar—cruising lazily, paralleling the Melas North Rim, lit
up by dancing spotlights aimed from the ETE Station. “It’s been
sailing just outside of cannon range of our Station since sunset
last night.”

“Decoy,” I say the obvious.

“We’ve never seen more than one of those ships,” he
tries to excuse.

“They’ve either been busy or sneaky,” I consider.
Another burst hits Air Command, shattering concrete into dust.
“Metzger!” I switch channels quickly. “Status?”

“We’re shaken up but holding together,” she reports
from the tower. “I’ve got some loss of pressure, but we’re
squirting goop to reseal—if we were still at original Mar’s
pressure we’d be in trouble, but we can get by with masks until the
air gets thick again. But if we keep taking hits to the same
section of shielding, we might get penetrated. You want air
response?”

Radar and visual cams show me dozens of little
shadows flitting moth-like in the air over the base.

“Negative,” I tell her. “Keep our ships secured in
their bunkers. We do this old school.” Then I switch back over to
the ETE channel. “I need your answer, Council.”

“I’m warming a transport as we speak,” he tells
me.

“Appreciated. Keep me apprised.”

The cannon fire shifts targets, and I watch the
greenhouse depressurize as big holes get punched through the
transparency. Then I see a handful of those little flyers come down
on the structure.

“I need guns in the greenhouse,” I call. “They’re
going for the produce.”

“On it, Colonel,” I hear Rios. “I assume we’re not
waiting for the cavalry?”

“Negative,” I clarify. “Defend our resources,
Lieutenant. Deadly force as needed.” Then I key up Abbas’
channel.

“Sorry for the hour, but we’ve got visitors,” I tell
him, realizing I haven’t woken him.

“So I hear,” he lets me know. “You have our
support.”

“Grateful, but tell your people to hold their
campsites, grab cover. I don’t want any friendly-fire incidents if
you get entangled with the pirates.”

“We can protect the greenhouse…” he insists,
unwilling to risk losing the literal fruits of our labors to the
Zodangans.

“Without Links, we can’t tell your warriors from the
enemy. And the ETE are on their way.”

“Understood, my friend,” he finally agrees,
simmering.

“Breach, Colonel,” Kastl announces. “They popped
Airlock 2.”

“They’re either going for Medical or trying to get up
here,” I consider the airlock’s location.

“Wonder if they know where they’re going?” I hear
Matthew, coming through the hatch behind me. He’s only a few
minutes late to the show, and doesn’t look sick at all.

“Every contractor had blueprints of this place,” I
remember. “I guess we never assumed the intel would be used against
us.”

“We never assumed anybody could get past our
anti-personnel batteries to get to our airlocks,” Matthew revises.
“Now this makes twice; three times if we count your girlfriend
letting herself in.”

Video shows a squad of H-A suits turning the narrow
entry of the airlock into a choke-point, their guns cutting down
the first three ragged pirates that try to charge in. Then a brace
of small spheres bounce through the ruptured hatch from
outside.

“Grenades!” Thomas yells. Her suits fall back to
cover as the corridor erupts, the airlock shattering, concrete and
metal spraying in on them, making it almost impossible to see
anything. The pirates use the opening to rush in again, but before
the H-A troopers can fire, I see two of the lead pirates jerk and
go down with familiar metal spikes through their heads. Then
Sakina’s red cloak flies through the smoke and dust and out through
the ruptured hatchway. The troopers hold fire, but several seconds
go by and not one other pirate comes through that gap.

“Permission to take the fight outside, Colonel?”
Thomas asks eagerly.

“Move up,” I tell her. “But your priority is to hold
that gap. We’re open.”

I try to get better resolution on the tactical map
that MAI is constantly revising from the surface sentries. It
lights me up at least fifty human-sized heat/motion blips swarming
the base bunkers, most of them clustered at the airlocks. The
imaging isn’t clear enough to tell where Sakina’s gone (doing what
I just told Abbas not to let his own people do), but then I notice
one of the blips is moving a lot faster than the others, jumping
and zig-zagging like a flea on the map. It darts at one of the
other hatch-breaking clusters—this one trying the big vehicle doors
just opposite the aircraft bays. One by one, the other blips go
still.