One Day on Mars

ever got out of the bay!' he said.

'High casualty rates, sir. Hope you fare better today.' She nodded emotionlessly as the elevator door opened on deck two and the lieutenant colonel hurried out.

'Thanks. Good luck!' he grunted, and told himself that he had 'never seen her.'

'You too, sir.' Nancy held her balance as the ship rocked again and the elevator door closed. The eleven seconds that passed before the elevator doors opened again on the hangar deck seemed like an eternity—a very bumpy eternity.

'Well, this is what we're here for.' Nancy stepped through the elevator door, let out a long slow sobering sigh, and made her way toward the end of the hangar bay.

Yes ma'am, it is, Allison added.

The Ares-class aerospace fighters filled the hangar from one end to the other and the technicians, flight deck officers, and pilots were scurrying all about in T-shirts or coveralls of solid reds, greens, blacks, yellows, or oranges depending on their particular jobs. The scene was reminiscent of a fire ant mound that had been kicked over. Nancy allowed her mind to rest on that image for a split second. How likely would it be that she'd ever see a fire ant mound again? Hmm, had fire ants made it to Mars and did they survive there?

Where are you, Penzington? Navy Lieutenant Commander Jack Boland called on a wireless AIC-to-AIC connection.

Just got off the elevator. Be there in a sec.

Nancy picked up her pace to the end of the large fighter plane hangar. The room was approximately four hundred meters long and at least a hundred meters wide. There were rows and rows of Ares fighters lined up on each side of the hangar and there were more of them hanging from the ceiling. Techs and pilots were scurrying furiously about them preparing for the pending attack deep into the Separatist Reservation.

Stop, Nancy! Look out! Allison warned her by shouting in her mind. Nancy stopped to let an automated equipment lift full of munitions and power packs hover past in front of her. Had she not stopped at the pristine painted black and yellow caution stripe, the two ton lift would have flattened her and never looked back. Her mission would have ended before it had even started!

Thanks for the heads-up. Fortunately for Nancy, AIs communicated with each other and the lift's AI had warned Allison. She finally reached fighter bay 133 none the worse for wear.

'About time, Penzington. You ready?' Jack smiled down at her with the confidence of an ace naval aviator who had seen and lived through his share of bad scrapes.

'Been ready for about two years now. Let's get on with it.' Nancy stepped up the rearward ladder into the backseat of the Ares. The little fighter was a sleek swept-wing craft with directed energy guns (DEGs) mounted on canards in the front just behind its blunt nose. The snub wings of the vehicle were only a few meters long, and at the swept-forward blue-gray wingtips were seven millimeter railgun cannons that fired a hundred rounds per second. On top and below each wing were rows of mecha-to-mecha missiles, each of them only a few centimeters in diameter and perhaps a meter long. The little plane had to have at least a hundred missiles on its wings. And underneath the belly of the fighter plane was a single larger missile with red-and-black radiation warnings painted on it. It, Nancy knew since it was her idea, had a special purpose.

Nancy glanced at the rows of skulls mimicking the Separatist banner insignia across the empennage of the fighter and reassured herself that Lieutenant Commander Jack Boland was the right man for the job. There were three rows with ten skulls each. The fourth row began with two little geodesic domes and nothing else.

'Jack, I understand that the skulls are Separatist fighters, but what are these domes?' Nancy eased herself into the backseat of the snub-nosed fighter and two crewmen began strapping her in.

'Don't ask. Freakin' politics!' he spat. 'That is why I used to be the CAG.' The fighter squad leader smiled. 'One day, goddamned politics is gonna kill us all. You mark my words, Penzington. Mark my words.'

Nancy wondered what the former commander of the air group had done to get demoted from the job. Obviously, there must have been some political backlash to whatever he had done. Were it important Nancy could get the files on the incident fairly easily, but it probably had no bearing on her present mission and therefore she didn't concern herself with it.

'Ma'am, you'll need to give me your ship and flag patches and any other tags, codes, and ID,' a young chief in an orange jumpsuit and Mars red helmet standing on a scaffold beside the Ares fighter told her as he continued attaching her safety harness to her ejection system. The Sienna Madira continued to rock wildly from the surface-to-air defenses, bumping Nancy around inside the cockpit of the fighter a bit. She showed no emotion other than slightly chewing the right side of her lower lip.

'Thanks, Chief. Here, I'll not be needing them any longer,' she replied, and held out her right arm for the tag- neutralization scanner the chief passed over her. There was no pain, tingle, or even the slightest tickle, but Nancy's identification as a U.S. citizen had just been wiped away from existence. Only a DNA sample analysis back at Langley could change that.

'Roger that. Good luck, ma'am.'

Nancy just nodded and closed her faceplate. The scrubber kicked in and her oxygen supply read full and not being used—the scrubber was getting plenty of good air from the hangar bay.

'Good hunting, DeathRay!' The chief snapped a salute.

'Roger that!' Jack saluted back and the chief quickly climbed down the scaffolding.

Jack settled into the front seat, then pulled the hardwire connection from the universal docking port (UDP) of his Ares fighter and plugged it into the thin little rugged composite box on the left side of his helmet that made a direct electrical connection to his AIC implant via skin contact sensors in his helmet. The direct connection wasn't necessary, but functioned as a backup system in the case of enemy jamming of the wireless connection between the AIC and the fighter. The wireless connection was spread spectrum encrypted and almost unspoofable. Almost.

'Hardwire UDP is connected and operational. Lieutenant Candis Three Zero Seven Two Four Niner Niner Niner Six ready for duty,' Jack's AIC announced over the open com channel. Then directly to Jack, Let's go get 'em, Commander!

Roger that, Candis!