One Day on Mars

ground-effect turbulence and jostled her around, causing her to lose balance. The left wing of the chute dipped and then jerked upward again. Nancy was tossed forward and slammed into the Martian ground, very very hard.

Shrub-grass, she thought as she saw it dragging under her helmet visor a couple of centimeters from her nose. The chords of the gliderchute twisted and turned in the wind, dragging her through the clearing. The chute continued to billow in the eastward chaotic winds and overpowered her senses for a brief moment. Nancy's speed picked up across the small circular plane's floor as she was dragged facedown. She managed to pop the harness from her left shoulder strap, allowing her to roll over onto her back. The harness still held her from the right shoulder and the waist and the chute pulled hard on her rotator cuff, straining her shoulder muscles to keep her arm in place.

Nancy fought against the wild jumbling ride with her free hand managing to stay on her back, but having little luck releasing the right side harness fasteners. She could feel painful impacts against her back but the e-suit's armor protected her from anything serious. Then she saw a tree several meters in diameter streak by her head only a meter or so away. She fought panic because she knew that if she hit a tree trunk at the speeds she was being dragged it could be fatal, especially if her head hit the tree first.

Knife, Nancy! Your knife! Allison screamed in her mind.

Nancy quickly squelched her panic and set about the business at hand. Another tree, near miss. Then another. But Nancy had unsheathed her knife from the left shoulder scabbard and was slicing away at the harness on her right. It gave way, leaving only the attachment at her hip. She sliced at it with one quick motion and then the gliderchute pulled free of her and whisked away with the wind out of sight into the dark Martian night. Nancy rolled over onto her stomach and slammed the knife blade, her free hand, and her toes into the grass to slow her to a stop.

Completely still, Nancy did a quick assessment of her body and decided nothing was permanently damaged. Minor bruises, she thought as she rolled over. There were no stars above her. Between her and the sky was a canopy of conifer trees and beyond that was smoke, dust, and radioactive fallout all glowing in the eerie orange and red tint of the burning city. Nancy stood and dusted herself off and then sheathed her knife. About fifty meters away she could see the remains of her gliderchute tangled high in a conifer tree.

Now, that's a pain in the ass, she thought. How the hell am I going to get up there?

Too high for jumpboots, Allison said.

Chapter 7

10:41 AM Mars Tharsis Standard Time

'Well, it's too damned high for jumpboots. How do you expect to get up there?' Sehera shrugged her shoulders and pointed at the dome ceiling nearly a half of a kilometer high above them.

'The maintenance shaft will take you to the exhaust system about two-thirds the way up the dome,' Reyez Jones, the adventure store manager, said. 'I've jumped from there before. But I've never jumped from the absolute top of the dome before. Not sure how to get up there. There is a twenty-meter-high electric fence that surrounds the peak of the dome. I've tried to figure out how to get over it, but had no luck. The dome is too slick to use jumpboots to get over it. I'm not sure why the fence is there either.'

Abigail? How far will two-thirds of the way get us? Senator Alexander Moore asked his AI staffer.

It will put you a good ten kilometers short, Senator. But with jumpers that is not such a bad run, the AI told him.

'It'll have to do. Who is with us? You can either stay here and be captured when this city is overrun, or you can go with my wife, daughter, and myself,' he asked the cadre of tourists taking refuge in the shop. The only takers were Reyez and a woman from Triton, Joanie Hassed, who had seen firsthand what the Separatist soldiers were like. The remaining tourists couldn't believe that Mons City would fall for even the briefest moment. The two assistant managers of the shop, Rod and Vince, had raided a package store next door for food and beverages and were well on their way to being completely inebriated. They were going nowhere. The others were debating on finding the nearest shelter or just staying put in the adventure store.

'The U.S. Navy will take care of us,' the little fat man that Deanna had stuck her tongue out at earlier replied. He stuffed chips in his mouth through the open visor and then sipped at a Mons Light.

'Hear, hear! To the Navy!' Rod and Vince held their beer bottles up in toast.

'Though I prefer the Air Force,' Rod replied as he tilted his bottle again and took a swig.

'Yeah, you were in for what, six weeks,' his coworker goaded him.

'Hey, it was a medical.' Rod tried to think of a better comeback, but taking another swig from his beer was the best he could manage.

'Suit yourselves.' Senator Moore didn't really care for the extra baggage of tourists and drunks anyway. 'We're going.'

Reyez, Alexander, and Sehera packed the gliderchutes under Reyez's instruction. Alexander had made hundreds of jumps decades ago, but these were new civilian systems and he was smart enough to listen to an expert when he had one. Reyez carefully inspected the four packs and harnesses and ran through a quick explanation of how to guide them. Then there was a brief uncomfortable moment where Reyez was afraid to ask who was tandem-flying the child. In Reyez's mind, there was no question that he was the only person in the group qualified to do that. Alexander caught on to the apprehension and squelched it immediately.

'Deanna rides with me,' he said.

'Sir, are you sure you can handle that? I've jumped with thousands of kids in tandem before,' Reyez protested.

'Listen to the man, Alexander,' Sehera warned. She didn't talk that often but when she did it was always with the authority of a woman who wouldn't take no for an answer.

'No. I've got hundreds of jumps into a helluva lot worse situations. I'll take her. She's my daughter, I'll be