The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades (10 page)

This is when I finally see what the six “scouts” may
be approaching. There’s heat just beyond the colony site, in the
slopes of the Divide. I immediately know what I’m seeing: It’s a
bleed from the nearby Gray Station’s sub-strata mining. The Station
lies behind me on the Divide Rim, roughly halfway between Concordia
and Nike, but after all these decades, the deep Tap Cores would
have probed the rim rock this far, and likely carelessly enough
that a common freeze-thaw slide exposed the resulting tunnels to
the surface. Perhaps the scouts are foolishly looking to the
unstable caves for shelter. Or perhaps they expect some opponents
have camped there, given their reduced numbers.

I consider that Chang had once made a base for
himself just beyond Tyr. He may have come further east (or perhaps
his successors and/or surviving minions have).

The scouting party could be moving into significant
danger. And if that danger has the high-ground vantage I do, it’s
seen them coming.

I decide to put my fortuitous arrival to best use. I
keep to the foothill slopes for best concealment, and I move toward
the heat.

That I have failed to spend my walking time improving
my climbing skills becomes quickly problematic. The slopes are
loose and rugged, and I take several embarrassing and potentially
revealing slips. It seems miraculous that I don’t appear to have
been seen (but I do take precious seconds repeatedly looking behind
me to reassure myself that Azrael isn’t amusing himself at my
expense).

I manage to almost keep up with the scout team by not
descending, by keeping to the high ground, moving well above them.
This hopefully also keeps me out of the sight of anyone watching
them
.

My course brings me up on a sizable vent in the
rocks, several dozen meters up above the main opening. They have
left two of their number to watch their retreat as the other four
move into the caves. I get a shock when I suddenly see Azrael,
standing just behind the sentries as if he’d just materialized
there. I worry he may intend to kill them, mistaking them for
enemies, but he certainly must recognize the allies of his master
better than I, especially from so close. As if to confirm this, he
gives me a casual wave.

I’ve lost too much time. The four have already been
inside the caves for several high-risk minutes by the time I find a
gap in the vent to wedge myself down through that has enough warm
rising air flow to be encouraging. A hypersonic sonar ping lets me
know that the vent does indeed access the main cavern below me. At
least I don’t hear sounds of violence. Yet.

I batter myself performing a variation of a chimney
climb, wedging my back into the rocks while I ease down using my
arms and legs, trying not to get tangled in my cloak or sword,
trying not to clatter. It’s painfully slow going, but I finally see
the dim glow of some kind of artificial lighting below me, feel the
open air of the larger cavern. I find a perch to sit myself in that
gives me a view down into the main void. Sitting still and silent,
I begin to hear human sounds. Voices. Anger. Laughter.

There’s light: the dim glow of rechargeable survival
lighting. I use my modified eyes as well as my goggles to light the
space better, and make the heat of bodies glow as their own
torches.

There’s a cistern down through the middle of the
cavern, an abyss where a deep-mining unit cut downwards, mined,
moved on, but created a sink. The pit is maybe five or six meters
in diameter. It may go dozens or hundreds of meters deep, depending
on what resources were removed from the lower strata. The collapse
left a few narrow terrace-like ridges around the mouth of it, but
it otherwise forms a death-trap in the course of the lateral main
tunnel, with only narrow crossings left on either side, and those
are likely crumbling. The majority of the lights and heat ghosts
foolishly cluster around the fragile rim like it’s some kind of
amphitheater.

I consider linking back in to the Station data
systems to look for mapping, but I’d surely be detected, and if the
Council wants me badly enough to send a Guardian team, they could
be here within minutes, not knowing what they’re running into.

My eyes are already adjusting enough that I don’t
need to rely so much on the goggles. I begin to make out the cave
dwellers as more than just blobs of heat, actually see them. They
are not squat armored creatures like the one Azrael dropped at my
campsite. They’re of normal proportion and appearance, most wearing
black suits that look like light surface gear—
Chang
uniforms—
though some are adorned with colorful paint that looks
Zodangan, and pieces of armor. I count twenty-two shapes just from
my vantage. It looks like a camp, possibly for refugees, deserters
from Chang’s doomed army. But why camp so close to a death
trap?

I expect the reasons for the risk may be several:
There may be running water from condensation or an underground
spring created from melted permafrost. There’s somewhat more heat
rising from the pit than is flowing through the lateral tunnel. And
the narrow passes on either side may prove defensible, the terraces
around the pit mouth serving as trenches to fire from.

But then they throw someone into the abyss.

There’s no scream. I expect the body—though glowing
warm—is a corpse. But the others find the spectacle amusing,
howling with laughter. Cheering. The body falls almost out of
sight, then jerks to a stop and slams the side of the pit, hard
enough to send a shower of rubble into the hole. It’s on a tether,
secured by the ankles. It gets dragged roughly up across the rocks,
back up to the rim. Then it gets kicked, prodded. It convulses.
Alive. But it still doesn’t make a sound.

This is when I realize some of the figures standing
at the edge of the pit are bound: a small cluster of them, five
total. They do not wear the uniforms and partial uniforms of the
Chang deserters. And they do not have normal proportions.

I didn’t notice this initially as they were standing
apart from their apparent captors. The prisoners are much taller
than their captors, perhaps a full head, and their arms and legs
appear unusually long and thin. But their torso proportions are
particularly strange: Just like the armored one Azrael killed for
my benefit, their ribcages are almost double that of an average
Normal, while their waists are shockingly slim. And when lights are
brought in close (for examination or interrogation is unclear), the
skin I can see looks to be a deep red but unnaturally unreflective,
as if painted with the rusty Martian mud. Large dark eyes stare
stoically from long faces with exaggerated cheekbones. Their basic
clothing consists of simple fabrics, also rust-colored, that look
hand-made. I expect they were wearing more, and have been stripped
down.

One of the black suits wrestles one of the standing
prisoners down to his knees over the prone and fetal form of the
one they had thrown into the pit. He cranks on an arm as if to
break it, then appears amused. His voice travels enough in the
caves that with my enhanced hearing I can almost understand him: He
speaks in a thick Zodangan accent, slurring his pronunciation and
using some of their unique slang. He appears to be marveling at how
flexible their prisoners’ bones are, how difficult they are to
fracture. He draws some kind of machete, turns to the others long
enough to demand that they speak, that they answer whatever
questions he’s probably been putting to them. Then he hacks, taking
off the kneeling prisoner’s right arm just below the shoulder. This
seems to entertain his men further, but he doesn’t get his
questions answered.

I watch the maimed prisoner bleed in a flood onto the
rock. He stays stoic, stays upright, his severed arm still tied to
his other by the wrist. Then he does something truly surprising: he
forces himself to his feet when his attacker’s attention is turned,
and swings his severed limb like a weapon. I hear it impact the
interrogator’s skull, the blow staggering him. One of the other
black suits runs in to restrain him, only to get the severed limb
wrapped around his neck. He stabs the prisoner through the torso
with a short sword, but the prisoner pulls them both toward the
edge, and they vanish together into the pit, his murderer screaming
until the sound comes to a sudden stop.

The interrogator recovers himself, begins kicking the
prone prisoner, continues until the body falls into the pit. But
this time the cord it cut, letting him fall all the way.

I scan my surroundings, look for a way down, but I’ll
be seen. But then I see movement, apart from the group, down the
main tunnel back toward the surface. I have to use infrared to
confirm: It’s the four from Abbas’ group, watching this spectacle
unfold from hiding, probably sizing up their opposition, deciding
on their course of action.

Unfortunately, the interrogator decides to try a new
tactic. He drags another prisoner forward, tears at the tunic it
wears, exposes… female breasts. He’s stripping her. Strikes her
across the face. I’m too sure that I understand his intention.

I cannot let this continue.

I run some poor calculations in my head, choose to do
something risky to the point of stupidity. I aim myself, and use my
enhanced muscles to leap from my perch, drawing my sword as soon as
I’m airborne.

I come down harder than anticipated across the pit
from the prisoners, behind one of the black suits, recover myself
before he can turn, and hack. My sword bites into meat—I feel it
scrape ribs as it sinks into his side halfway to his spine. He’s
still up, turning his weapon in self defense, when I jerk my blade
out of him and hack across his skull. I have no idea if he
screamed—all I see is red, all I hear is my own breathing. I run
for the edge of the pit. Someone starts shooting. I feel something
smack my shoulder plate and send fragments into my helmet. I ignore
it. Leap.

I think I’m screaming. It seems to take a long time
to cross the void. But I hit the ground on the other side before
the interrogator can forgo his machete for his pistol. I run into
him sword-point first, drive my blade into his gut, up under his
ribs.

And I get shot in the back.

Two shells smack me hard in the plate, almost taking
me off my feet, but a third misses my armor just as I’m struggling
to stay upright, tears through my ribs between my liver and right
kidney, and punches out just below my solar plexus. It burns,
shocks, staggers. I look down at the hole torn through my sealsuit,
see my blood sprayed on the belly of the man I’ve stabbed, mixing
with his as he leaks down to the hilt of my weapon, and realize the
bullet that came out of me is probably in him but I’ve made so much
of a mess out of him I can’t tell.

I can’t breathe—any attempt I make at inhaling is
agony. My nanites go into emergency protocols, but I can only
imagine the damage done—one bullet, just one bullet… I try to pull
my blade out of the interrogator, lose my grip on it, but manage to
block my victim’s hands before he can shoot me in the face, grab
hold for dear life. I pull him into me, hoping for a partial shield
as we do a sloppy dance. My vision goes purple. I feel sick rising
under the blaze of pain. I’m shaky, clammy, dizzy. I think I’m
going into shock.

The man I’m grappling with is spilling himself out
all over my boots (my sword has ripped his belly horribly open) but
he won’t stop fighting. His gun goes off right next to my head. I
remember I have a gun of my own, try to reach for it…

The female prisoner surprises me then by lunging into
us, leaping and spinning herself. She hooks her bonds on my blade
where it’s sticking through her abuser, and saws herself free.
Drops. Grabs his machete. Chops his feet out from under him, then
repeats the move against a man who comes running to his aid. Then
she rolls for her still-bound companions.

She doesn’t make it. One of the black suits opens up
with an automatic weapon, and cuts all of the other prisoners down
in one horrible burst.

Now I hear screaming. Hers. Like an animal. She
throws the machete at the gunner, hits him in the face, staggers
him. He aims at her with his face split open. But then his head
comes apart.

Three more black suits go down under surgical sniper
fire.

In the very few seconds it takes all this to happen,
I lose the battle to stay on my feet, the hobbled interrogator
falling on top of me, vomiting blood on me. Still, he won’t stop
fighting. The black suits open fire back across the pit, grabbing
cover. But I’m only momentarily forgotten. I try to wrestle myself
free of the mostly-dead man on top of me, beating at his head and
neck as he refuses to quit as I see another black suit aiming his
weapon at me, trying for a shot that doesn’t hit his comrade. I
blindly thrash for my pistol, find it, jerk it free of its holster,
point it, fire. I aimed for center-of-mass, but only clip his
thigh, then his arm. He drops to his knee, lets go of his gun with
his wounded limb, points it with his good arm…

…but then his head jerks. There’s a metal rod
sticking through his temple. He topples over like someone switched
him off.

I turn and look. A blur of a cloak comes flying
roughly at me across the pit. I point my gun at it instinctively
before I realize it’s one of Abbas’ scouts, moving unbelievable
fast. I’m actually thankful when it ignores my threat, passes over
me, puts spikes into two more black suits before drawing dual
knives. The black suits try to shoot it, but it flies and flips—I
dumbly recognize what I’m seeing from the training files of the
original Guardian teams: This must be the Zauba’a Ghaddar.

I also realize my cowl has fallen back during the
fight. My ETE helmet must have been recognized.

I try to help the Ghaddar, still on my back with a
body half on top of me, shoot, miss. Miss again. Manage to hit one
of the black suits in the face (I think). I can barely hang on to
the pistol.