The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (44 page)

“So the nukes we sent won’t do shit,” Kastl confronts
Jackson, “except maybe get used to do more harm on our behalf.”

“The nukes are bait,” Dee tells him the real plan.
“More so, Colonel Ram protecting those nukes is bait. Bait he won’t
be able to resist.”

“He’s resisted it so far,” Rick criticizes.

“Patience, Doctor,” Dee tries.

“Patience just got a few hundred innocent people
vaporized.”

“Then we need to control what we can control.” Dee
looks at me. I nod my understanding.

“Gold Leader is incoming,” Kastl updates us.

I throw Jackson to the floor, then turn to the
kneeling guards.

“Take Colonel Jackson into custody. Confine him. Then
do the same with Lieutenant Colonel Stark when he lands.”

“They can’t take orders from you!” Jackson raves from
the deck. “You’re not a person! You’re a
thing
!”

“But she’s still a UNMAC officer,” Kastl stands up
for me.

“Colonel Jackson is compromised, unfit for command.
Take him to Isolation. Now!” Halley orders more specifically, being
the highest ranking officer in the facility that hasn’t been
relieved of command by order or by force. They still hesitate. So
she makes it clear for them: “This man just dropped a nuclear
weapon on hundreds of innocent people. He may have been acting
under the influence of a mind-altering enemy device, but you don’t
have that excuse. Do you want to be on-record as supporting him
when the JAG investigation hits?”

They finally move to take him, two of them picking
him up off the deck and holding him by either arm. Dee risks giving
the other two back their weapons, though I expect he’s slaved the
guns to his own control, just in case.

Jackson’s gone away somewhere, likely succumbing to
shock, the horror of his condition finally sinking in. He shuffles
like a zombie as they lead him away.

“See if you can find it and get it out of him,” I
tell Halley. She doesn’t look confident, but follows them out. But
before she leaves, she stops and turns, stews on something for a
moment, then tells me:

“I’m not a combat officer, so I’m officially
deferring command to you, Colonel Ava. Let the record so
state.”

We exchange nods—this is a massive risk for her, and
an equally massive act of trust.

After she’s gone, the rest of us are left in tense
silence. Kastl gently sets Jackson’s weapon down on the console and
takes a deep, tremulous breath.

“First light, we need to get eyes out there, search
for survivors,” I decide.

“You think those people—if any of them are still
alive—are going to accept any help from
us
?” Rick
argues.

“We can’t do nothing,” I insist. “Maybe we can
arrange for the Katar or one of the other groups to reach out to
them on our behalf.” I know it’s unlikely anyone on this planet
will be willing to work with us after today, but we have to try.
I’m thinking it may be smarter to offer the aid through the other
hybrids, since they’ve sown some goodwill with the locals, but I’m
not willing to say that out loud yet. My position is perilous as it
is.

“You need to make the announcement,” Dee reminds me
of my duty, as if reading my mind.

I take a few breaths, realize how much I’m
shaking.

“Captain Kastl, give me a base-wide broadcast.”

He nods, keys up the PA system, then slides back to
give me room.

“All personnel, this is Colonel Ava. Colonel Jackson
has been relieved by Colonel Halley. I have taken temporary command
of this installation until communications can be re-established
with General Richards or Earthside Command. Our first priority will
be re-establishing secure communications with Orbit and Melas
Two.”

I hesitate, debating whether I should tell them we
just murdered hundreds of innocent people, the very survivor
descendents this mission was sent to locate and aid. I’m sure the
scutt will spread soon enough. They deserve to hear it through
their command chain. But I don’t think it should come from me, not
right after I led a mutiny, however justified.

“Ava out.”

Then I turn to Rick and Anton.

“Re-establishing communication with Orbit,” I repeat
my priority. “I need to get eyes back on the Warhorse, preferably
without giving Asmodeus those eyes. Can we get the laser uplink
back online?”

“We can, but we don’t have Colonel Jackson’s
recognition codes,” Kastl gives us a barrier.

“I doubt he’d be willing to share them with me,” I
suspect.

“Maybe Halley will have better luck,” Rick tries. “Or
we can try to sell Burns on giving it a go.”

“Do it,” I order.

Rick cycles out to see what he can make happen.

I realize Kastl is looking preoccupied,
uncertain.

“What is it, Captain?”

“Just… Is the laser link really secure? I mean, it
can’t be hacked, but if Asmodeus can listen in directly on either
end, old-school eavesdropping… Is there any such thing as ‘secure’
communication anymore?”

“Actually, we need him to be listening in a little
bit,” Dee reveals. Kastl’s jaw actually drops. Anton looks at Dee
like he’s not sure if he should be worried that he’s malfunctioning
or compromised. So Dee explains: “I haven’t been able to
effectively track and locate Asmodeus due to his technological
advantages and my lack of resources. Now that I can more freely
access the UNMAC AI and communication network, I can gain the upper
hand, break the maze he’s hiding in, map his network, target all of
his active nodes. I just need him to try hacking in, even
passively.”

“So we need to be a little sloppy,” Kastl accepts
nervously. Then worries: “But won’t that give Colonel Ram’s
position away?”

“Asmodeus has never taken eyes off him,” Dee is
certain.

“So he’s rolling into a trap,” Anton isn’t
liking.

“We’ve played this game before,” I recognize
heavily.

Dee nods.

“Does Colonel Ram have a chance?” Anton needs to
know. “Alone against that monster?”

“If we play this right, he won’t be alone.”

Rick and Anton got the laser systems back up and
calibrated within the hour, but couldn’t get any kind of response
to even confirm that they’d established a link. So they tried
putting a transmitter back in an AAV—Starks—and beaming an
encrypted signal to Orbit. Still nothing.

Dee says it isn’t because they can’t reply, it’s
because they
won’t
. They saw Melas Two compromised. Then
they saw Jackson kill the uplink on our own roof. They’re assuming
we may be compromised as well, or they’re not willing to take the
risk, especially not without the command code protocols that
Richards set up, and maybe not even then at this point given what
they saw happen to where Richards was.

Jackson’s been in no mood or condition to cooperate,
cycling wildly from horrified shock to paranoid raving. Halley’s
having no luck finding the tech in his head, a challenge magnified
because he won’t stay still for imaging, not even in full
restraints—he’s cutting himself on the straps. She finally had to
fully sedate him.

Burns is being equally uncooperative, citing a lack
of authenticated command orders. I suspect he’s hoping to avoid his
court martial by getting us all wiped out (and himself along with
us). I even took the time to check him for anomalous signals, but
couldn’t get a ping out of him.

We need to talk to Melas Two. But we haven’t heard a
sound out of them since they took down their own uplink, and the
ASV eyes we had on the site just show it completely blanketed in
black until they lose sight of it after dark. (The EMP they
dropped, as expected, had zero effect on Chang or whatever he’s
become.)

On infra-red, the site’s been ice cold, colder than
the background environment, but that could just be an effect of
Chang’s light-absorbing “cloak”—it may absorb heat as well. And we
have no idea what’s been happening under that cloak all this
time.

The ASVs we have on watch are certainly close enough
to hear if Richards tried to call out using one of his own
aircraft’s transmitters, even with the aircraft still down in their
blast-resistant bays. But our repeating calls for response continue
to go unanswered. If we could get gear closer… but that would mean
getting closer to Chang (or whatever he’s become), as well as any
of Asmodeus’ seal-piercing insect-like micro-bots that may still be
active.

I really need to know what’s happening there, but I’m
not willing to risk more lives. I could go myself, but I’m sure my
few allies would insist I stay here to keep command of this
base.

“Dee, can you contact any of the other hybrids?” I
use my last option.

“That is also a network Asmodeus can monitor,” he
warns. “They’ve been maintaining operational silence for that
reason.”

“But will they respond to you if you called
them?”

He doesn’t answer me in words, but I can hear him
signaling, sending out a general call.

“Tell them I need eyes on…” I catch myself, correct:
“No. See if any of them are willing to meet me here. Or close by.”
Better I tell them what I want in person.

But I know they don’t know me, have no reason to
trust me except because of my relationship with Michael, and I
think I’ve devalued that by consistently remaining loyal to UNMAC.
I certainly have no investment to be asking for favors.

Sunrise brings the predictable wind, and our planted
sensors start detecting fallout blowing our way. Small consolation:
The warhead was low-yield and relatively “clean”, but the
projections Anton works up tell us that a swath of the Central
Blade Valley east-southeast of Katar will be effectively poisoned
for a few decades to come.

“It probably won’t kill the plants—they’re designed
to be resistant to the levels of solar and cosmic radiation that
bake this place—but their produce won’t be safe to eat, not for a
long time.”

One more thing to hold Jackson accountable for,
assuming I can hold him accountable for anything. (And no updates
from Halley and Ryder about locating the nano-ware in his head, but
even if they find it, I doubt they could do anything about it
anymore than we’ve been able to do anything for those
Harvester-infected souls we have slowly dying in stasis.)

“Colonel Ava, I have an urgent encrypted flash from
Watchdog Two,” Kastl interrupts my frustrated brooding.

The audio is fuzzy, and so is the video, but it’s a
daylight shot of Melas Two, from the nose-cam of one of the two
ASV’s we have watching from what we assume is safe distance, signal
boosted back here by the strongest mobile transmitter we have on
planet: the Leviathan Three, parked at midpoint.

The black blanket is no longer covering it. In fact,
except for the visible damage to the refugee camp and the uplink
tower, everything looks peaceful.

“Are they picking up anything, any signs of life?” I
need to know. Kastl encrypts and sends my queries.

I get back a poor attempt at a zoom on the
“courtyard” of the base. The air bays and Aircom bunker wing are
blocking much of it from this angle, but what we can see—what my
recon team can see—is movement in the shelter camp. People. But I
don’t see violence or chaos, just bodies moving back and forth
through the rent pressure tunnels between shelters, almost like
business-as-usual, but with higher than normal traffic. Something
is happening, but…

It looks like people are working in masks to patch
the torn sections, make repairs. Are they just trying to be more
comfortable while they wait for the end? (I’d think death by
asphyxia would be preferable to death by Harvester.) Other
shapes—barely visible inside the opaque fabric tubes—are moving not
only between shelters, but also seem to be going in and out of the
base bunkers. How much of the base was compromised?

“I’ve got a bay opening,” Kastl points out. It’s Pad
Four, one of the closer ones to our recon position. An ASV lifts to
surface-level on its elevator deck, but doesn’t spin up for
liftoff. The engines read as cold.

But then we get a signal, relayed from its
transmitter.

“This is General Richards calling Grave Base. Colonel
Jackson, do you copy? Repeat, this is General Richards calling
Grave Base. Please respond.”

My wave of relief is almost immediately soured by the
skepticism that this could be a trap, a ruse. (And does that make
me just as paranoid as Jackson and the others? I tell myself no,
it’s just that I can’t afford to risk lives, so I have to tread
carefully, tactically.)

I risk approving an open link on a non-networked
receiver. Kastl’s ready with it in seconds, and I reply:

“General Richards, this is Colonel Ava. Do you
copy?”

“Copy…” he sounds both relieved and confused (but
probably not as wary as I do).

“Colonel Jackson was compromised and has been
relieved of command. There was an incident…” I try to be as
professionally discreet as possible, especially since I really
don’t know who’s listening. “I’ve taken temporary command of the
installation. What is your situation?”

“Situation… Situation remarkably normal, Colonel.” It
sounds like he’s really not sure what to say, and not because he’s
trying to be discreet. “There’s no sign of the black nano-mass that
descended on us. It just vanished all at once at zero-five-thirty
this morning. And as far as we can tell, all of the micro-bot
delivery systems have been neutralized. They’re just lying around
all over, inert, including the seeds they were carrying.”

“Casualties?” I ask the hard question.

“It’s too early to be sure but… possibly
zero
.
We’re keeping the exposed reasonably quarantined in the breached
sections, and Doctor Shenkar’s team has been running exams on
everyone. But so far,
no one
appears to be infected.”