“How far?” Tak asks. We don’t dare lase for range, a) because dust will absorb and scatter, and b) because the helm plates can guess almost as well with their incident angles and magnification transforms, like a camera finding focus. So Tak already knows.
But I say it anyway. “Five klicks for the lead group.”
“Reinforcements. Transports and weapons.”
Our angels now feed us rough approximations of what’s stirring the closest dust. “Tonkas, four big ones,” I say. “A bunch of Skells. A Chesty. And maybe a Trundle or two.”
“Jeez. What’s on the platforms? Stuff we trained with, or sci-fi crap we don’t know how to use?”
Skyrines dream of that possibility. Major upgrades—MPHF, pronounced mmph, acronym for Mega Plus Hurt Factor—in our dreams these fabulous, decisive weapons are delivered by surprise, ready to link to our angels and upload instant training and serving suggestions. But training vids are the weakest link in Earth’s military-industrial complex. Gurus leak us ideas for shit to use, but they don’t tell us how best to use it.
Thinking there might be MPHF coming at us is too much to hope for. Hurts deep in my warrior soul. So we change the subject.
“That dust widow likes you, Venn,” Tak says.
“She’s in a tight angle.” I tell him about her situation with the Voors.
“Shit,” Tak says. “They want to paint her?”
“They would if they could.”
“No wonder Coyle wanted them separated. I thought only enlightened nerds colonized Mars.”
“Not hardly. Lots of folks wanted to get the hell off Earth. Rich and poor, nerds or just pissed-off.”
“I do get the impression our guests don’t much like brown people. Me, they don’t know how to take.”
“Nobody knows how to take you, Fujimori,” I say. “Besides, why would any of them like Skyrines? Antags dropped shit on their settlement. It’s our war, they claim, not theirs.”
“Well, she likes you. What was it you found in those dungarees? What did Neemie say it was?”
“Platinum.”
“Is there beaucoup platinum down there?”
“Maybe.”
“Shit, let’s do a Dirty Dozen!”
“You mean Castle Keep,” I say. “Or maybe Kelly’s Heroes.” Most Skyrines play Spex combat games or watch war movies when they’re not crossing the vac or training or fighting. Some read. Tak does it all, but unlike Vee-Def, doesn’t file away trivia.
Tak scoffs. “How far?”
“Three klicks and closing.”
“See anything behind the Tonkas and the sleds?”
“Could be Millies. And high up, aerostats.”
“Aerostats mean germ needles,” Tak says.
“Wear a hat.”
“Shit yes. Big steel sombrero.” He holds his hands over his head, spreads them wide, pretends to hunker down more than we already are, squeezed into a narrow crevice in the rock.
Air support over Mars is difficult, because wings have to be so damned huge; anything like an airplane has to be big, clumsy, hard to maneuver—a perfect target. Antag aerostats are huge and even more clumsy, and in theory make good targets, but they seem to be cheap, easy to replace, and are surprisingly tough to shoot down. You pretty much have to slice away or burn out a few dozen meters of the aerostat’s surface before it’s fatally wounded and descends slowly to the dust, slumping like a big jellyfish on a terrestrial beach. We don’t use them. I’m not sure why. We don’t use germ needles, either. I’d say Antags know more about our biology than we do about theirs.
I rub the surface of the old basalt with my hand, feeling the age, trying to psych out some deeper truth.
Tak watches my hand. “Spirit of the Red? What you receiving?”
“Zip.”
“Fucking superstition.”
I’m not so sure. I keep seeing the coin, the platinum disk with its spiral of numbers, and it doesn’t fit. It doesn’t fit that some Voor miner would leave something so cool and valuable in his overalls—unless of course he died and nobody else knew. Still, Teal seems to know. Possibly her father knew something and told her.
And maybe, just maybe, the previous owner of the dungarees was a caretaker, left behind…
And decided to go naked, without his dungarees?
Leaving his coin?
Maybe he’s still down there, deep down, wallowing in green dust.
SNKRAZ.
“Three klicks,” Tak says.
“Can’t get a fix on how far behind the Antags are.”
We’re both thinking the same thing about the gates. Their outer doors will be like toilet tissue against Antag weapons.
“I say it’s another five klicks. Gives us a minute or two to welcome reinforcements.”
We enter the personnel lock and cycle through. We’ll be back outside soon enough. The rocks look jagged enough to hide more than a few warriors. We’re going to have to erect a slim sort of defense around both gates, set up a 360 atop the basalt hump-head, maybe find a kind of natural, high-point revetment for the lawnmower—the strong-field suppressor. It looks like a compact barbell with two handgrips and two nodes thrusting forward from the gray balls on each end. A triplex of spent matter cartridges hangs between the grips. Flip your guard and squeeze both grips and you spread tuned nasty over a wide arc.
We exit the inner lock hatch and stand before DJ, who is all alone and looks confused.
“Where is everybody?” he asks.
“Where’s who?”
“Everybody. The Voor wagons are still over at the southern garage. The ranch wife’s buggy…” He points. Teal’s cylindrical vehicle is still parked beside the older hulks. “But all the people—gone.”
“You passed through from there and didn’t see anyone?”
“Just tunnels and dust.”
“Where’s the colonel and Captain Coyle?” Tak asks.
“Wherever they all went, I suppose,” DJ says, exasperated and scared. “Nobody said a thing to me. How the hell should I know?”
I walk around the garage, examining the floor. There’s a general trample of boot prints in the green dust, ours upon arrival, and then paths heading in several directions—nothing more.
“Goddamn Voors,” DJ says.
“How the fuck could they overpower Skyrines when we have a lawnmower?” I ask. No answer. Tak is thoughtful.
Tak, DJ, and I are alone in the northern garage, with guests soon to arrive, and no plan how to greet them.
DRIFTERS AND HOBOS
Alice settles into our couch, draping her pleasingly plump arms along the back, feeling the leather with her well-manicured fingers.
“How did the Drifter get there?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Didn’t Teal or Joe tell you?”
“I don’t know what I don’t know,” I say.
“You’re testing me.”
“You test, I test. I’m asking meaningful questions. Doesn’t that mean I’m on the mend, Doc?”
She lifts a corner of her lips, takes one last look at the platinum coin, and delicately deposits it on the glass table between us. I don’t think she covets it. I think it scares her. “Nobody thought such a formation could exist,” she says. “We’ve been telling ourselves an old, old story… trying to get it to make sense, not quite succeeding.”
“Who’s we?”
“Experts and doubters,” she says.
“You do geology?”
“I used to analyze orbital surveys. For a year, I even guided tactical mapping. First time I went out on a space frame, crossing the vac, to get up close and personal with the Red, we were caught in a massive solar storm—about halfway. Lasted six days. Fourteen space frames, everyone got full dose. Cosmoline couldn’t absorb near enough. We arrived and parked in orbit. Fortunately there was an Ant lull at the time, perhaps because they were too smart to go out when it’s that hot. Our frames got shipped back before we could drop anybody. Twelve frames returned, but two are still out there, endlessly orbiting—dead. I rode a hawk down to SBLM, ended up spending six months in Madigan rehab. Ended my career. Officers don’t rise in ranks if they’re stuck on Earth.”