The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (45 page)

There’s a unanimous surge of hope and relief
throughout Ops. Under better circumstances, I expect there’d be
cheering. But I have to damp the moment, because these aren’t those
kind of circumstances.

“Advise caution, General. Asmodeus has been employing
a new kind of weapon. Very subtle, very hard to detect, even with
our new gear. It influences behavior without causing significant
neurological damage.” I let that sink in for a moment, let it sink
that surge of relief we all just felt, then take another careful
step: “We should continue this conversation in person.”

“Agreed, Colonel,” he allows, his tone much more
serious now. I consider my fairly limited options.

“Unfortunately, I’m not comfortable leaving this
facility, given the circumstances. So I’m going to ask you to fly
here, one ASV only, under the escort of the two aircraft I have
watching Melas Two.” I’m going to have to send a relief flight
first, I realize, and that will cause a significant delay when we
really can’t afford one, but it’s the best play I can come up with.
“We’ll meet outside, on the airfield. I’ll signal you when we’re
ready to escort you.”

“I’ll be awaiting your call, Colonel,” he accepts
after a brief hesitation. I know he’s smart enough to expect a trap
waiting for him on this end, and I’m grateful that he trusts me
enough to risk it. And his options aren’t nearly as thin as mine:
He’s got a lot more aircraft, ordnance and manpower than we do. He
could easily decide to isolate us, take the facility by force of
arms, or just blow us off the map.

I can only hope that he’s still in control of his own
mind, that Asmodeus hasn’t tampered with him. But I can’t be sure
until I can be within a meter of him.

We sign off, and I order the last two aircraft we’ve
got to spin up and relieve Watchdog.

If Dee’s got anything to say about my choices, he
keeps it to himself, his expression as unreadable as a lifelike
mask.

From the memory files of Mike Ram:

“Colonel…?”

It’s Horst.

It’s daylight. Morning, given the color of the sky
and the whistle of the wind over the crater rim. It gently batters
the groundcover all around me. It would be a beautiful day, but
then I see the remnant column of ugly smoke, grown like a toxic
tree from where Liberty used to be, and I remember to hate.

“Colonel Ram?”

He’s standing over me, but a few meters off, safe
distance. Lyra is about a meter behind him, safer distance. Both
wear L-As and cold weather coats. They look worried through their
masks and goggles, their facial bruises already turning ugly
purples and yellows. But more than that: something in their eyes is
deeply wounded, broken by trauma.

To my left, the battered Box bot sits, again almost
like a loyal dog watching over me.

I lift my head. I’m still lying flat out on my back,
limbs splayed like I’m making a snow angel. I should be covered in
ash, but my armor is pristine black. Gone are all the dents and
tears from being shot countless times. I expect my face is equally
unmarked.

The world immediately around me is not. I’ve
scavenged the plant life for nearly two meters all around me,
surrounding me in a circle of desiccation. My very existence is
death to this place—Earthside is a poor rival in that.

I’m stiff, I ache, but rage goes a long way as an
analgesic. I sit up. Horst takes a reflexive step back, well
outside of the scavenged circle.

I see the ‘Horse, about where it was when the blast
hit. It is covered in ash—a fine cloud blows my way, carried on the
breeze. There’s an H-A suit standing by the rear lock, armed but at
ease, as if waiting. I can’t tell who it is from here. (I could
zoom in and read the name plate, but I really don’t give a shit.)
Another suit is checking over the track—that’s probably Simmons. It
moves like Simmons.

“Should you two be out here without rad suits?” I
greet them sourly.

Horst shows me the radiation badge on the breast of
his jacket. My own systems confirm that the toxicity is acceptable
for short periods.

I wonder where the wind will carry the fallout? Will
it head for Katar, or pass them by, headed straight back toward
those who sent it? No, the world isn’t that just, never has been.
Yod’s made sure to preserve that for authenticity.

“We need to go, sir,” Horst prompts me gently but
urgently.

“Continue the mission…” I mutter to no one.

“What they said at Liberty… If that was Asmodeus… He
came from the direction of Alchera…” Horst reminds me like he’s
walking a minefield. I expect I look like the kind of thing that
would murder the world right now.

I don’t bother to tell him what he knows: That
Alchera is certainly another trap. I also don’t bother to tell him
what he doesn’t know (but probably suspects): That the whole point
of me being here is to walk right into those traps, and bring these
poor loyal soldiers along with me. They’re window-dressing. Here to
try to convince my enemy that I’m somehow not properly anticipating
him. Because I would never put vulnerable innocents in the line of
fire, use them to draw fire (or the man I used to be would never do
that). If Asmodeus knows that, it won’t change the outcome: He’ll
spring his trap anyway, always too tempted to inflict hurt on a
handy victim, always happy to hurt me by hurting others.

I look at Lyra. I’m tempted to convert her, to use my
last Seed. But not because I’m involuntarily aroused. I’m thinking
she’ll be dead anyway if we keep going (and I have to keep going).
I could make it more merciful than the demon would. I could…

I shake it off, push the toxic darkness out of my
mind, push myself up on my feet.

“Okay.”

It’s Corso in the shell standing guard at the rear of
the track. She greets me with a stony glare through her visor. I
can’t tell if she’s trying to find a way to blame me for this as
well or if she’s finally having to face that her leaders are a
bunch of genocidal psychopaths. Or maybe the problem is that she’s
a genocidal psychopath, too, and now they’ll be no hiding behind
righteous intentions anymore.

“Any word from Specialist Scheffe?” I ask her
flatly.

“She’s inside,” she lets me know with equal
curtness.

I cycle in with Horst and Lyra as Corso prompts
Simmons to wrap it up so we can roll.

Inside the bay, Scheffe has stripped down to
shirtsleeves, her short-cut hair wet and smelling like she’s just
been through decon. She looks pale, which makes her facial cuts
stand out starkly. Her bloodshot, swollen eyes stare at the deck,
hands limply on her knees. Her breath shudders like she’s been
crying.

There’s a delay before she looks up at me, like she’s
drugged or in shock. She tries to say something to me, but can’t
seem to, can only shake her head. Then her eyes are back on the
deck.

“She said the Knights got away in time,” Horst tells
me quietly. “Into their rim bunkers. But not all of them. Some
stayed behind, tried to convince the Sons to get the hell out of
there, offered them shelter…”

“…it was so…
loud
…” she mutters. “So loud. It
shook the whole planet… Then the wind outside… When we came out,
when it was safe enough to get me out… there was nothing… nothing
left…”

“They gave her a cloak and cowl to get her home, keep
the fallout off of her. We canned what she was wearing, scrubbed
her down just in case. She’s okay, but…”

He doesn’t bother to finish. I understand. Sort of. I
understand what it’s like to witness atrocity. I’ve been doing that
all my life. What I can’t imagine anymore is what it’s like to do
so as an innocent.

She volunteered to come here, to Mars. One-way
ticket, given the Quarantine. She had every reason to believe there
was something here that would kill her horribly, but she came
anyway. Because the mission was to save people, to help people.
Righteous cause.

“Righteous cause…” I grumble out loud. Horst and Lyra
give me questioning, worried looks, but let it go. I can see
they’re dealing with their own stew of doubt and rage.

Corso cycles in with Simmons, pulls off her helmet
and starts to rack her armor.

“Secure to roll,” she orders, almost absently, not
looking at any of us.

“Shouldn’t we try to help those people?” Lyra
protests. “At least check for survivors?”

“We can’t risk it,” I say before Corso can. “And
nothing we have on board will do those people any good, even if
they don’t just shoot us on sight.”

“The Colonel’s right,” Corso grimly agrees with me—I
think she actually appreciates me letting her off the hook. “If
there are survivors, Orbit will see them, send it Upworld to decide
on the best course…”

But I hear real doubt in her voice, I think for the
first time.

“Now, secure to roll,” she repeats her order, trying
not to let us hear her uncertainty.

“Respectfully, Major,” Simmons speaks up. “We still
have the same terrain issue. And no rover bot to test the ground
ahead of us.”

“I can do it,” I throw out. “I could use the fresh
air.”

Corso doesn’t send anybody out with me this time, but
I’m not alone. The Box rolls on beside me as I lead the ‘Horse
forward. It actually proves useful in this chore: Its mass on its
treads and wheels give me a good sense of the soil without needing
to scan it meter-by-meter. When it hits a treacherous patch, its
rotating sections spin it out, and it finds a way around. This lets
us make better time than anticipated, and soon gets our back to the
still-smoking Liberty site as we turn south.

The Knights’ intel that there’s been no enemy
activity inside the crater lets us keep that pace. Corso doesn’t
seem in the mood to doubt it, so she doesn’t order us to stop to
recon the lowlands and uplift monoliths. We just take a few cursory
scans, and I look for signs of the nano-nets we use to hide big
things. And we move along. Maybe she just wants to get as far away
from Liberty as possible. The remains of the mushroom cloud still
loom behind us, like the ghosts of all those who died in it, and
the suffering of potentially more gruesomely injured or poisoned by
it.

I can’t help but feel that sky-high ghost is accusing
me for unintentionally painting the site, despite my intention
being to save lives. I brought Jackson right down on them. The fact
that no military command officer—
no human being
—should drop
any
bomb on a target without verifying it is no real
absolution.

It takes two hours to make it south across the
eastern side of crater bowl. Simmons and Smith identify a possible
exit: a pass through the southeast of the crater rim that will take
us out just to the south of the mountains to the east of the
crater. Once we get around those mountains, we’ll turn straight
east-northeast, and have a fairly level path to Alchera,
thirty-five klicks across the Coprates main valley to the foothills
of the mountains at the base of the great North Rim slope. There’s
some terracing in the valley floor, geologic signs that have been
taken to indicate that this part of Marineris was once a great
lake.

If we keep making time like this, we could be
approaching the colony site by nightfall.

But crossing the valley puts us out in the open. I
haven’t been out that far east, haven’t had the chance to go
sightseeing thanks to Asmodeus’ relentless attacks. I don’t even
know if the invisible Lake stretches far east enough to be between
us and Alchera. (Though I suppose if it did, Asmodeus wouldn’t have
been able to hike from Alchera to Liberty disguised as a wandering
madman, assuming he actually did hike the whole way. His airships,
however, would have flown this part of the valley, shuttling scrap
back to the Grave.)

There have been no further recon flights all day.
Either they’ve shocked themselves into temporary inaction, or
they’re convinced they’ve destroyed the track and what it carries.
And that gets me back to their failure to confirm their target
before they dropped a fucking thermonuclear weapon on it. So I
spend the hike brooding over whether I’m dealing with genocidal
incompetence or genocidal hubris. Given the common denominator in
those possibilities, I know I am going to have to take my war to
them as soon as I’m done with Asmodeus—that wasn’t my rage talking
in the immediate aftermath of atrocity. It’s the only way to ensure
the survival of everyone left on this planet. There’s no denying
that now.

The irony of it brings a sick grin that I’m glad no
one in the ‘Horse can see. I’m going to have to do exactly what
Chang set out to do (what he even asked me to join him in doing):
Chase Earth away from Mars and keep them away. For once I’m
thankful for my functional immortality, because I’m going to have
to fight that fight until the peoples of Mars can somehow do it
themselves. Or until the human race is done or evolves into
something that doesn’t exterminate itself.

A hundred permutations of that argument fill my
walk.

We make the climb up to the pass with minimal
slippage. The way through is initially smooth, but then we get a
jarring descent over man-sized boulders for over a klick on the way
down the other side, threatening to undo all of Simmons’ (and my)
repairs. Only the Box handles it with impressive grace by
design.

There’s another roadblock as we wind around the
southernmost mountain beyond the crater: a jagged but low crest of
rock that forms a kind of tail or tentacle out from the mountain.
It would add nearly ten klicks to our trip to go all the way
around, so we decide to nudge ourselves gingerly over it. This,
more than any other ordeal we’ve been through, reminds me of one of
the pointless and potentially disastrous stunts I used to see
off-road competitors put their insane vehicles to on Earth. Only
the Warhorse is five times the size of the biggest “monster truck,”
and, of course, loaded with nukes.