Red Zone - 4
A Novel
I
Stone
78°S 292°W Southern Military Sector (SouthSec) Mars
25.61.044 JD
(October 19th, 2299 OC)
1
Speckles of white splayed and showered up and out, over the low radical slope from the front of the tank, its power making it float over the ice, but kicking up sheets of frozen water and carbon dioxide. The sun had not yet kissed the frozen plane, but it would start soon, flooding everything with a glazed glare. Night was long at the Southern Pole.
It was Major Venketesh's last patrol as commander of the third tank group, but his mind did not wander to the promotion, which was his in 2nd Sol,[1] but instead, he remained focused on the array of information on the combined screen in front of him. The pilot – Lt. Arun Al-Maliki – was still obviously not used to the terrain of SouthSec – the southern polar zone of Mars – which is mottled with craters. Sheer rock pylons stuck up through the ice, and the entire terrain was not the even flatness of the “belt” districts of the equatorial and, excuse the expression, temperate areas on Mars. There the vast ice-ocean was often flat all the way to the horizon, covering over even major features. Here, also the ice was rigid, with no underbelly of water.
“Lieutenant, see if you can be a bit more responsive to the grain of the ground? We shouldn't be throwing up so much ice.”
“Sorry, Maje, I'm trying my best but...”
“No excuses Arun, the directional should be showing the path, flow with it.”
“Yes sir.”
Even as he instructed Arun, he kept looking through the 360 monitors. The ripped terrain made it hard to use any kind of simple scan, and instead, he was constantly matching the data from above with the tank's own readout. The problem is that the south polar area had bad coverage. It wasn't impossible to keep a constellation of satellites, but most had been knocked out by the Pegasi Event not long before, and there had not been the time, or desire, to repopulate the missing teeth fully.
But despite his wariness, everything was placid. The sweep was nearly over, as they reached the last waypoint and turned towards the group's base. Arun was in a bit of a hurry, they were close to MarsMach[2] – the speed of sound in the growing, but still thin, atmosphere of a planet that was waiting to be born into life. Below the great ice sheets, were water, and heat, and kemosynthetic life. Out here, there was a thin envelope, which was breathable for long enough to be a temptation. But really, it was a death zone. The brain slowed and locked up. He did the low-pressure training every week, but he still didn't like it.
At age 31, he was a very long way from home. That bit at him: today was his birthday, a concept that he had not previously placed a great deal of focus on, except that it was a Terran year since he had come to Mars on a hardship assignment, and only for 72 hours of leave had he seen his wife. She was high above, on the moon Phobos, working for the diplomatic section. This time apart formed an angry knot in his stomach. He let it pass, it was a decision they had made 10 years before. One that he regretted more every day. It was the way to get the most legislative credits, to pay for something that neither wanted anymore.
But there it is. At least chasing snow on Mars was not what he had done before: working the Congo Reconquista: an area of perpetual revolt on Earth. Dropping in, killing clusters of people, and then roaring out. 73 drops in 10 years. It wasn't a record, but it was close. 73 times into gossamer-thin flying tanks, with just enough protection to take light arms, and just enough engine to run from heavier guns. But with the ability to cut a swathe even through dense vegetation, and pick out those who were loyal, or at least registered, from those in revolt.
He saw a ray shoot off of the high ice crystals. Red highlights had already started to appear, and a grey-green cast to the ice had become a burnt brown orange that was slowly filling the gullies and catenaries of ice. But they were still deep in winter in the southern hemisphere, this kiss of light would fade almost as soon as it would come, and they would be buried in the dark and cold.[3] “I know you are on loan Arun, but you have to get this duty while you are here. It's different from the equatorial sectors and very different from Capsec.[4] We are the emergency response, package delivery, civil engineering, and law enforcement all rolled into one.”
His tone was disembodied, as it gets when your eyes are soaking in both visual and data and can't see the person addressed. The inside of the hover tank fitted three people very tightly. The one whose head was in the turret was halfway to standing, a circle of displays around the inside, with both outside views above and below. In the main body, there were two half-reclined seats, with minimal support contacts within their protective cages. Two crew would be on duty at any one time, and the third either in full sleep, sim sleep, or even light hibernation. Awake off duty time was kept to a minimum, though there were slices where all three were awake to go over opdetails.[5]
A designer from Terra itself would call this a spartan cabin. It was aglow with detail and display, far more than would be required for a minimal functioning. Venky had seen the inside of Jovan[6] hover tanks, with their heavy curves and complete lack of ornament or other obtrusive optimizations. But then, came his musing on the topic, it wasn't just aesthetics at work: Jovians tanks were made for a relatively limited range of duties, in a relatively limited range of environments. He glanced around him. The model he had would work with modifications, from the blast furnace of Venus, out to the deep cold.
His eye fell on components. Underwater, in the air, along with sheets of ice, with retractable treads for dirt and mud, in the lush jungles. Jovians tanks also did not have a multiplicity of functions: including the fold-out operating table. Venky noted this with a certain amount of pride, he was closer to a captain of a ship, than a driver of a vehicle.
“So that's why Doc here gets it easy? That and he hands out the stie and atts?”[7]
“Raj is an excellent trauma surgeon. We had to reattach a hand the last sweep, as well as an assortment of other maladies.” Also, he's a member of the intelligence service.
“How did the retherm[8] of the guy who bivo'd[9] work out? How did he think it was a good idea to sleep exposed in this climate? Even on the Garden World, this latitude would be fatal.”
“It wasn't as crazy as it sounded, he was near enough a pounder that the steam escapes kept the wind and cold off of him and provided supplemental oxygen. The pounder was still drilling close to the surface, so the periods were pretty short.”
“Still crazy.”
“I'm sure he'll remember that every time he moves his three built limbs and his reconstructed face. He lost about 25% of his body mass. Doc was lasering off slabs of necroflesh.[10] Beyond any kind of revivification.[11] Fortunately, we had a stem cell bank from him back at the base. But he was also missing chunks of memory.”
“So how did that work? You could not have had any on a tank.”
“They shot it out to us, we're off only by a hundred meters, straight off the side of a crater wall. I bounced down, grabbed it on the third bounce, and landed back up.”
The Major visualized the inflatable spheres he had attached to his suit to take the hopdown and with a couple of good bounces, was able to snatch the capsule that had been shot from a magnetic gun at the base. Faster, by far, than, climbing down, and much more efficient than jetting. With the victim laid out already on the operating table, he had not wanted to maneuver the whole tank. It had earned him a star, his 45th. Many officers could serve 20 years and collect only half a dozen. But Venky was on a mission, each star bought liberties, and liberties could be cashed in. Another 10 years of insane heroism and he might even be in the clear. And he'd only lost a hand twice and had exdecom[12] take out half his chest. Three major injuries were pure luck.
“That's wobbly, with all due respect Major.”
“Stay close to me Lt. I've never lost a direct crew member.”
“Everyone knows you've got the well[13] around you.”
“Stay deep in the luck well Lt. Stay deep in the luck well.”
He was making conversation with Arun because a deeply coded message was coming it. It was not displayed, as such, but instead showed up in the variations of the presented information on the display, timings, gaps, the presentation of the words which formed pictures. And it wasn't exactly telling him the information, but refining a false memory until he could feel he had been told something.
“Is everything good Maje?[14] The display says your eyelids are fluttering.”
“I'm good. I think I see something.” Any more information might expose a lie that would show up, move softly.
And he did see something: the steam vents from the cluster around the base were becoming visible and enriched by the slow advance of polar twilight, the highest tops were now ruby. Paradoxically, it was the vents on the far side of the base that was the most visible, because of the angle of the light. The cuts and crags of rust-brown rock, coated with ice and speckled with dry ice, were coming to a color. The high jets of steam broached the ironite haze and thus were far redder. He was noticing the beginning of precipitation. The steam froze around iron particles, and as a result, fell.
Venky adjusted the forward shields and made some other minor, but useful manipulations.
The message stopped. But then crept back in at a lower level. It was highly adaptive, and cleaned up after itself, a worm that ate its tale,[15] that disassembled its kits, and burned the logs behind it. Leaving almost no trace that it had happened. Only the very keen-eyed would have suspected. But Venky knew he was the weak link: he had to understand the message, and that was eating into his concentration. Arun's board had noted the barest flutter of his eyelids. He didn't even let himself form words in his mind, not until alone again. His inner voice went dead. Very very dead.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Wait, I didn't hear that, it must be a memory.
The drone of data started to form a definite picture in his mind. He would be receiving a message on a non-channel. It would be just after the return from the sweep. His eyelids tensed as he tried to pluck a picture from his mind, but he did not want to close them. And then, a face came through: the face of Admiral Kumar, right now high overhead, in command of the Mars Dominion Fleet.
Mentally he demerited himself, the sophistication of the subliminal message would have had to come from only a limited number of sources, and of these the Admiral, the “Mad Dog” would be the only one he knew who had both the sophistication and the need, to circumvent channels. His wife could have used diplomatic drop, the Mars Directorate would have just summoned him, if need be, his superiors in the Dominion Ground Forces, would not have needed to hide anything anyway.
He'd been on enough secret missions, doing the dirtiest of deeds, that had not, officially, been done, to know the tapestry of who bothered to hide what from who. Subliminal messages were the province of those in positions of authority, which were in bad odor with the powers that be. He'd gotten one once to tell him to disable the IFF[16] on a mission. Kill them all, God will know his own. A reference to an ancient religious war on earth. And since there was no jungle full of coolies on strike, that almost certainly meant this had to do with Kumar, who was his patron.
The Mad Dog had something to say to one of his puppies: “For Your Eyes Only.”
As a result, Venky stopped himself from reminding Arun to slow down.
“What I can't get used to Maje,” Arun continued in the casual onboard chat mode without thinking about why Venky had been chatty, “is just how full metal mil[17] you guys are down here. Up in the equatorial, we are basically air-mounted repairmen. We visit pounders, sensors, drills, vents, we eva,[18] and we get back in the tank, move on to the next place that Scicorps [19] wants a measurement or experiment done. Strict diet of procedural.”
“There's police, rescue, and services up there.”
“The only law enforcement we tend to do is getting drones back on track.”
“Dominion[20] security,” Venky gave one of his drier tones to it, “is very efficient.”
“Ya ya, they have real work to do. I still think we could probably disband the Ground Forces and not miss it. It has been what, a century since there was a stand-up fight?”
“Basically, everything else has been a test discharge of weapons resulting in a massacre.” Venky knew exactly how that went: lasers slicing people like sandwich meat so quickly that it took longer for them to blossom apart onto the ground. Microwaves cooking people leaving the skin around a dried-out husk. Overdone attacks are designed, as much, as to leave behind terrifying remnants of a person, not even properly a corpse. His body count was in the thousands.
“How many drops do you have.”
“Enough for my lifetime. Very different from equatorial duty.”
“Long ago there was trouble, but once they increased the size of the immortal[21] contingent, things were heavily locked down. Nothing since.”
“That was before you were in the service.”
“Not by a great deal, I apprenticed at 8. That's the only way to get a good slot if you don't come from one of the first families.”[22]
Venky let himself recall and allowed it to be a noticeable recall, of Arun's dossier. “Your family should have made the cut.”
“We still owed on passage. That was the rule, any outstanding transit debt, no status. And second family[23] is like being second in line for an escape pod.” Escape pods carried one person. “Your family must have stories from that time.”
“Ya Ya, but you know how it is, the mountains get taller, the craters get deeper. But the truth is we only lost a few people to accidents and only one to violence.”
They were rapidly approaching the base, a low-slung cluster of domes, with a tall spire in the middle. The colors were washed out white, mottled with dust, and glowing with long threadlike filters.
Cluttered in front of it was an assortment of functional devices, cranes, filters, slings to launch vehicles. SouthSec's command post here was old, and much of it was from the lift and throw days, when durability, rather than efficiency, was the premium. One could stare at it, and see pictures from the old moon base era, from the old days. Tucked in one corner was a small dualdisc dome.[24] On it was a small logo, with four letters. Letters that meant little to most people, but caught Venky's eye because of their history:
“NASA.”
He also spied the device of the Union of India, to which the base, and everything fixed in it, technically belonged. It was the Union of India's sector of responsibility. The Confederation had NorthSec,[25] the People's Republic had FarSec.[26] Colonial had EastSec[27] and WestSec.[28] CapSec[29] was supposedly under joint control, but that was a fig leaf for absolute directorate control, specifically the corporate houses. SouthSec's command post was at one of the early landing depots from the 21st century. Even on Mars, human beings were loath to abandon a site of inhabitation.
The reason was obvious, in the heavily cratered South Polar region, flat plateaus are rare. Mainly, if it is flat, it is at the bottom of a crater. Here the old water wash from the last stand of liquid of ancient Mars had cut a broad alluvial plain, farther south, a vast ancient delta had carved channels that spread over tens of thousands of square miles, the size of the Colorado River on Terra. The result, given Mar's tight horizons, was a sense of “big sky,” that felt like a weight being pulled off after having spent days weaving through the claustrophobic 260s and 270s – around 270 West had a huge band of challenging terrain.
Arun slowed faster than was advisable, and the camera lens door to the tank's hanger opened with a startling swiftness to accommodate it. They came to an abrupt stop. Doc was waking up from sim sleep. The transition being equally abrupt. But as usual, his chubby face was smiling, pushing his brush mustache up. He was going to hop out fast and head in to do the report. It was an open secret that Doc was also Dominion Intelligence, and his check-ups, and medical records were heavily combed for data on who was doing what.
“I'm off Major Venkatesh. Debriefing in 45. With your permission.”
“Granted. Until our debrief. Check your bio exper,[30] you need a bit more fine-motor control.”
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Wait, I didn't hear that, it must be a memory.
The top folds of the tank opened, and Doc almost hopped out.
“You to Arun, I'll do check-in this last time.”
Arun didn't need to be told twice, he sprang and was gone, his muscles a bit wound from the confinement, but he and legs – that term for a body adjusted to Martian gravity and conditions. Venky had simmed[31] and stimmed and still did not feel at home in the gravity of Mars, which was a shade under four-tenths that of earth or twice that of the moon. The moon offered a marvelous buoyancy. Mars was just heavy enough to be heavy, but too light to be familiar. It seemed as if the world moved slowly. The Jovians found Mars uncomfortable, their worlds, like the moon, had gravities alike. Many wore delicate exomuscles[32] and ached all the time. It gave him hope that if the Republic and the Dominion ever came to blows, at least the groundside might go Terra's way.
He thought upwards and realized that the naval battle would almost certainly not. The command places faith in spinal mounts but in practice the only thing they could hit was land.
Alone he resealed the tank and began the check-in. Moments later a single small screen sprang to life. The face on it was the sharp lines and scraggly beard of Admiral Kumar. His face was animated but very serious. Matters were deteriorating. Though, of course, Venky did not know the details.
“Greetings Admiral.”
“Venky.” The admiral's voice was neither Dominion Standard,[33] nor the vaguely fashionable rendition of old Indo-English,[34] nor the Terringlish[35] of the Jovians. It was almost entirely idiosyncratic to him, a rumble from the back of the throat, shot through a nasal whine. Venky had never been able to place it, and despite decades of grinding from military protocol, Kumar maintained it. Now he could do so with impunity because he had a quality that was extremely rare in the military: he had fought and won a battle. The Tycho Mutiny[36] was one of the only battle ribbons issued. Kumar had taken one destroyer against three and carried the day against the only serious military revolt against authority in any normal lifetime.
Of course, some military commanders from before had incepted – entered the computer sphere to gain the quasi-immortality that that brought. They sneered, to a one, at soldiering today. But not Kumar, he was spoken of as one of them. During Venky's time at the Academy, the Tycho mutiny was studied in detail, and even the echoless voices of the departed military intellects noted it as one of the few feats of arms.
And so, Kumar could speak anyway he liked. His “pack,” as they called followers of the mad dog, often imitated it to some degree. Not Venky, his Dominion Standard was unbreakable as if he had been born speaking it: wife in the diplomatic section, therefore not negotiable.
Kumar started: “I am going to have a word with you.”
“I assumed as much. I'm also assuming this isn't reopening.”
“It would take too long and be too noticeable. You are remembering the implanted conversation as you work.”
Venky nodded. The only secure way, was a conversation that had already happened in his memory. A dream state.
“Major. I am going to have to leave orbit, I am under orders. So, for the time being, I will ask you to restrain your ex-hubarence in doing your dut-y. I need you alive.”
Venky swallowed.
“I do no more than I have to, Admiral.”
“We all know about the child you and your wife had immorted. We all know the debt that causes. But I need you, alive. You are one of my finest officers. One of the best.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Is there an issue?”
“Mars. Venkatesh. Mars.”
Venky had only time to blink, before he found himself back in real-time, finishing check-in.
The fleet was moving out of orbit. To where? For why? Under whose authority? Kumar could have done it on his initiative, but only within a very narrow sphere. As for why the warning, that wasn't hard: in his time on Mars, Venky had pulled support from the high fleet out of his pocket more than once. Kumar had been more than happy to help since his stellar record reinforced Kumar's campaign to put men of real warrior ethos in place.
Venky did not feel worthy of that, since rarely did he feel he had been in real combat. The regret on his tongue was dry, but it no longer stung. He had risked his life for others often. He jerked his head in affirmation. It isn't the killing, but the facing of death, that made the man. Like the miner, he saved not long ago. The hidden part of the story is that that same miner had tried to kill Venky Sols before. They had both sallied with the same professional woman. Venky saved him just the same.
He popped out of the tank and slowly eased himself onto the entrance platform. He turned to look back. Of course, he saw only a shadowy half-transparent low-slung orb, a half-egg. The outside of the tank was made of meta-materials that bent light and sound. The robotic arms had come down to fix the flecks and dents. Arun's driving had been hard on the exterior. Venky knew that Arun was not going to work out here and started to click the steps to get him assigned back to someplace else. In a few hours, he would take command of all of SouthSec, and he needed every man to be the best available.
Arun was jovial, easy to get along with, and hopelessly careless. Venky counted the dings and knew that any one of them could be targeted. His superior officer often pushed Venky to be less careful on the maintaining of the tanks, because it cost valuable supply credits. Credits that could be used for any number of luxuries to make the long hardship tour – virtually a Terran year without the sun – easier. The Lt. Colonel focused on keeping the men happy and at ease. To some extent, that meant paying well for the professional company that would not have spent time here otherwise.
Venky allowed himself a blush counting the times he had taken advantage of a service he abhorred on military wastefulness grounds.
He entered the base, and the iris snapped shut behind him. He took heavy breaths in, the air was fresh, with enough of a healthy scent to it to feel like.
Home.
[1] A local day.
[2] About 1080m/sec at that latitude.
[3] The ultimate for men who served: unburied.
[4] Capital Sector, the area around the volcanoes where the control of the base.
[5] Operational Details.
[6] The Terran term.
[7] Meta-materials are materials that bend or manipulate light. In this time period, they are used in a huge variety of ways. The meta-prefix in this novel almost always means this kind of material, rather than other uses.
[8] Warming someone exposed to hypothermia. In space, a common treatment.
[9] Bivouacked – sleeping outside of a building or tent in a secondary camp. For example, in a sleeping bag.
[10] Skin too cold to revive.
[11] Use of nano and biotechnology to repair even dead cells.
[12] Explosive Decompression, the rapid loss of pressure, faster than the air can empty from the lungs.
[13] A folk analogy to a gravity well, only for luck, the closer the more powerful the effect.
[14] Major, the military rank.
[15] Memory worm, an alteration of memory that also becomes active.
[16] Identify Friend or Foe. Any means that broadcasts the source's nationality or group. A transmitted version of a flag.
[17] Armed up.
[18] EVA – Extra-Vehicular Activity. Also, a joke about sex outside.
[19] Science Corps
[20] The Dominion is the super-governmental entity that is responsible for regulating and maintaining the “Garden World.” As such, it has almost dictatorial powers within its purview. However, it is no longer the unquestioned authority on all matters that it was before the Pegasi Event. It was created as a bi-lateral treaty between the Union of India, and the People's Republic of China, the two most powerful states at the end of the 21st Century.
[21] The ruling class, genetically enhanced humans to have extremely long lifespans. Since their introduction is relatively recent, there are no immortals any older than most normal humans, and there are artificial intelligences that are considerably older
[22] Mars, as with many colonizing bodies, created special privileges for “First Families” that settled before a particular date. Including a chance for “immortal” status.
[23] While technically an honor, very few have gotten “immortal” status.
[24] A dome made of hexagons and pentagons, like an old-style futbal.
[25] North Section, over the North Pole.
[26] Far Sector where the spaceships crews rest.
[27] East Sector where the majority of food is grown.
[28] West Sector where the industrial heart is.
[29] Hongjing 红京 is the capital of Mars, where the Dominion authorities live. Hong here is associated with “red” and “revolutionary” but the main radical also has “work” as its primary component. It is sometimes referred to by the Dominion in the lofty phrase “Capital of Beautiful Industry.”
[30] Exper, expert system. A semi-autonomous, highly trained network that is created to have the ability to have broad knowledge and the ability to run some area. In this case, biological regulation
[31] Stimulated, in this case, using bio means to grow artificial reflexes and memories.
[33] The official language of the Dominion is a mixture primarily of Chinese, Hindi, and English.
[34] The English spoken in much of India is a mixture of native languages on a base of British English.
[35] Old Standard English ca. 2100 as a base. The official language of much of “The Middle Diaspora.” A lingua franca derivative is Tradenglish – trading English.
[36] 2272 OC. Three DVs of the Dominion Moon Fleet rebelled for a variety of grievances. Kumar took the DV Illustrious and defeated it in a decisive space battle, one of the few actual battles of the last century fought by Dominion military forces