“Waste of energy,” Jacobi says. Hard sister. But this hurts her. It hurts her bad. Including the Russians, we’re down by half. Twenty-four of us climb into the Chesty and a Tonka, the only vehicles still functional and carrying charge.
Borden and Kumar, Ishida and Ishikawa, Jacobi, the square-faced young efreitor, and the chess-playing gymnast, Starshina Ulyanova. Litvinov. They’ve made it.
Jennings, Tanaka, Yoshinaga, Mori, Saugus, the pilot Durov, and his shotgun Federov—all dead.
Inside the Chesty, with the Tonka trailing, we cross the last two klicks. The Russians sit toward the rear, near the lock, shivering and talking about what, I don’t know, just talking. I want to talk as well. Screw propriety and courage. Screw everything.
“I heard the captain back there,” I say to Borden. It’s something to mention, something random that may or may not be important.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Borden says with less than her usual focus.
“I mean Captain Coyle,” I say.
She stares.
Litvinov lifts his gaze. “Ah,” he says. “You hear ghost.”
“She’s not a ghost,” I say.
“No? What, then? Others return, you know. Not just your captain. Federov heard! Now he is ghost, too.”
Kumar watches with sleepy eyes. He’s in shock, I think. He’s not hurt, but that doesn’t matter.
“If not ghost, what?” Litvinov asks.
“Bored,” I say. “Waiting for shit to happen.”
“On Mars, dead get bored fast,” the colonel says, then adds, in passable American, “Ain’t it the truth.”
The Chesty’s driver calls out in alarm. Through the side port, I see burning hamster-maze domiciles laid out on the brown rock like PVC piping hit by hammers and torches. The camp’s temporary housing has been opened to the sky.
I drop my chin and swallow hard.
ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES
Rather than pass through the Chesty’s airlock, we hunker down and the driver opens the side loading hatch. There’s a brief gale, a frosty puff, and Borden, Kumar, and Litvinov exit first.
The resettlement camp is in ruins, all but for a single quarter, which is surrounded by a couple of dozen Russian dead, Antags, a small Millie that seems largely intact but empty, until we walk around to the other side and see it’s been opened up as if by a can opener and scoured by lawnmower beams. The insides are gruesome.
“They wanted the settlers dead, all of them,” Kumar says.
“No shit,” Ishida says. “Willing to fight to the last warrior.” Jacobi touches her shoulder. She shrugs it off and takes point automatically, leveling her bolt rifle. I almost expect Coyle to add something, but once again she’s gone silent. No words, no word balloons—not even static.
Borden watches me like a mother hen over a piebald chick. We walk through a little arched gate, very pretty, that once led to an outdoor tented garden, now flat and torn. Someone dug trenches around the revetments, which look to me as if they’re protecting the domiciles and not vehicles. Someone, probably Litvinov, decided on a strategy of mobility and rapid response: Keep vehicles and fountains below ground level, dig fighting holes around the perimeter at fifty meters, prepare the ground to protect what’s important.
Six Russians emerge from the forward trenches to greet us. They’re all that’s left. They gave everything they had pushing back the Antag offensive, and Litvinov isn’t bringing them good news, except that—maybe—the last of the enemy have been dispatched.
“All bad guys, toast,” a Russian says in passing, shouldering his bolt rifle and accepting a spent matter pack from Ishida. Unless there are human sappers out there with their own orders, ready to move in next. If I had any creep left, I’d be creeped the hell out.
The Skyrines load up from the Chesty’s reserve. I’m left with the pistol. Litvinov barks instructions. Vigilance. No rest for anyone. Another Russian comes around the far end of the domicile carrying two lawnmowers, both blinking red—depleted. She stumbles along, worn down, a sticky wrap around one arm and another around her leg to help her suit hold suck. Without a word, she hands me one of the lawnmowers and Ishida the other. I hate lawnmowers as a matter of principle. I hate the noise they make, I hate what they do, and I’ve never used one in combat—trained with them, of course, back at Mauna Kea—but I’m glad to have it. The lawnmower means I’m no longer a fucking POG. Ishida passes me two spent matter packs and we lock and heft and wait for the lights to go steady green, then dark blue. Borden watches. No objections. She lends four Skyrines to the Russians. Jacobi goes with them and instructs Ishida and Ishikawa to follow Borden, Kumar, and me to the last intact domicile.
Litvinov waves for Ulyanova to unlock a small fountain. We climb down brick steps to the tap. “Take what you need,” the colonel says. “The mine is two klicks north. We stay here.”
“Understood, Colonel,” Borden says. “Apologies, but we’re taking the Chesty, sir.”
Litvinov shifts his boot in the dust. “We do our best,” he says.
At Borden’s nod, Ishida hands back her lawnmower. The Russian efreitor who gave it to her, in hopes perhaps that the Chesty would now be available, receives it with a side look at the colonel. Borden then gestures for me to give my lawnmower to Ishida. I hand it over. POG again, but it’s all good and we’re good to go. Six of us climb into the Chesty. All but three sentries head for the domicile to rest and organize. The domicile has a big lock on the north end, sadly adequate to pack them all in at once. Clearly we’re not taking time to stop and compare notes. I wonder who’s left inside. I wonder who’s at the mine. The second chunk of old moon.
Jacobi drives. Kumar takes the side seat. Borden sits beside me. Ishida and Ishikawa take seats on either side of me. Nobody says a word.
Ishida periodically taps her mechanical arm and grimaces. The wrist is softly clicking. Whatever tech they give Skyrines never works as advertised. I wonder what it’s like to be made one with your equipment.
You’ll find out.
Quoth Coyle. Only that, and nothing more.
BAD MOON RISING
The ride to the mine is quiet and swift. We seem to have temporarily run out of things that want to kill us. The weather gets weirder, however—spooky fog lies in a fine, low carpet over the basalt and dust, a few rocks poking through like tiny islands. Briefly, looking through the Chesty’s narrow slits, I feel like we’re in a jet cruising above overcast. Then, as if at the snap of a magician’s finger, the fog bristles into spikes and vanishes. Poof.
We climb a rise. Ahead is a sullen gray promontory, blocky and crenellated like an ancient castle, about a hundred meters broad and thirty high. Not as impressive as the Drifter’s old swimmer, but more than enough to draw attention on the monotonous plain.
As if pointing an accusing finger, a dust devil rises over the castle’s brow, dances a gray little jig, touches the Chesty’s nose, then picks up its skirts and dissolves. A scatter of sand rattles on the windscreen.
“Coin?” Borden asks.
I take it from my pouch and hold it up for her inspection. As returned by Litvinov, perhaps at Joe’s request. She says, “Good. Now we see who we can trust.”
Jacobi draws us up onto a cleared square of brushed lava and gravel in the shadow of the castle. She parallel parks, as hidden from the sky as possible—and shuts down the main drives but leaves the weapons on full charge. Again, we disembark through the wide side hatch, never having pressurized the interior. Out of habit, I check the Chesty’s water and oxygen supply, prominently displayed beside the hatch. Levels are at one-sixth. Quick calculation tells me that if there’s nothing left in the mine, no taps and no reserves, and somebody finishes off their work at the camp, we’ll have about four hours of sips and gasps. Jacobi notes this as well. Our eyes meet over the helm readout. She gestures for me to follow Borden. Ishikawa and Ishida flank us as we step down. A tight little cordon. I feel like a Roman emperor. Speaking of Rome, I could use a good orgy. Wonder what Ishida’s skills are in that regard—that little conversation—