One Day on Mars

'That explains a lot, sir.' Sergeant Jackson worked his shoulder around and around a few times to work out the kinks. 'We could see the bastards right there in front of us but they weren't on our screens at all, sir.'

'Yeah. I had two of the drop tanks trying to snake me in the tailpipe before we bumped into these two,' Cordova said, nodding at Shelly and Kootie. 'Fortunately, the LIDAR is working and the passive multi-static radar systems are, too, or I'd be a messy spot a few kilometers northwest of here. Well, and Burner got one of them off my ass, too. Probably a lucky shot.'

'Luck counts, Boulder, and you should be damned proud of it,' Burner said taking the zing out of Boulder's lighthearted comment.

'Oorah, sir.'

'What if this senator gets to the evac point and there is nobody there to cover him or to evac him?' Masterson thought out loud and more pointedly to the second lieutenant.

'Good point sir, but we could sure use some reinforcements if we are going to get to him anytime soon.' Washington was quite skeptical that his squad could manage it, but Marines did what they had to in order to get the job done. Improvise. Adapt. Now, if the lieutenant colonel wanted to offer up some support, on the other hand . . .

'He's a senator. We'd better get him out of here. If those Seppy bastards catch him he will be toast, literally.' Masterson thought for a minute then decided on a plan of action. Angel, optically link through Washington's AIC and QM to this senator. Figure out where the hell he is and what the hell he is doing. And ask him if Rose Bowl of '35 means anything to him.

On it, sir, his AIC replied. Rose Bowl, sir?

Just a hunch, Angel.

'We'll get him out,' Burner said to himself more so than to the AEMs.

'Sir, what about the Churchill? Any survivors there?' Jackson asked. 'And, do you have any spare ammo for standard seven-millimeter HVARs? We're flat out, sir.'

'As far as we could tell, the Churchill was completely destroyed with no survivors. Captain Samuels was a good leader and she led a great crew. We found no one. No. One. We did notice that some Army hovertanks were missing. Maybe some of the tank pukes got out in time. But the area was too hot to stick around to do a lot of recon.' Burner paused for a brief silent second and then turned to Cordova. 'Boulder, get these Marines whatever we can and lets get rallied to that evac point. From there we'll try to get in touch with somebody who knows what the fuck is going on.'

'I'm on it, Burner.'

Chapter 10

12:01 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time

The garbage incinerator room was larger than a basketball arena and had a piercingly pungent odor. The odor was so thick it could practically be cut with a laser welder. The air was heavy and damp and just plain rank.

The city being under attack hadn't stopped the reclamation and redistribution drones from their work. Large AI-controlled robot systems plowed through the mountainous refuse piles and separated them into various types of recyclable materials. Piles of multicolored plastics that ranged from translucent green soda bottles to the bright reds and yellows of children's toys made from previously recycled plastics rose like mountains in the cavernous room, some of them reaching peaks of more than a hundred and fifty meters high.

Nearest the far exterior wall of the room were plumes of smoke and steam rising from organically composting piles or scrap foodstuffs and bodily waste products that would be worked until the soil composting process was complete and then trucked to agricultural areas and beautification sites within the city. With millions of humans and animals in the Mons City complex there was plenty of organic waste of the smelly variety to be found. If the agricultural needs were met while there was a surplus of good soil, the surplus would be shipped out to other domes or agricultural projects via AI-driven robotic transports. Not only were the materials recycled or destroyed there, they were also redistributed.

Slightly south of the organic piles were the nonreclaimable materials that went into the incinerator. The reclamation robots worked the piles diligently, placing load after load of combustible stuff into the cavernous inferno. Some of the heat from the inferno was pumped throughout the city while the rest was used to melt soil and ices and the exhaust gases released into the atmosphere. There were similar incinerator systems in every dome city across the planet. Every little bit of terraforming gases released into the atmosphere helped. And the materials reclamation had proven to be a thriving industry for the Martian economy. Luna City, Triton, and Kuiper Station were almost completely dependent on the Martian reclaimed materials for construction resources.

'Over by the organics.' Reyez Jones pointed out the large lift across the way and below their vantage point on the entry catwalk. There was a control tower used to oversee the reclamation operation. Of course, it was all automated but the control tower was put in so that several union jobs could be established to 'oversee' the AI workers. 'There, see it?' Reyez leaned over the catwalk rail and fantasized for a brief second that the two- hundred-meter drop to the cavernous room's floor would make for a fun base jump.

'Got it. Look, the methane levels over there will have to be horrendous. By the time we get half the way there we should close our visors and go to scrubbers as long as we can. I bet we'll have to go to O₂ to go through that mess.' Alexander Moore had been thinking about the city dump for several minutes and was concerned that in the closed system there would be noxious volatiles and vapors that might pose a threat. Hopefully, the Seppies would know this as well and would have steered clear.

'Seems like a dangerous walk across that mess, Alexander.' Sehera didn't like the thought of traipsing her little girl through mountains of unstable pointy objects with no telling what types of infectious bacteria, molds, and fungi growing in them.

'Daddy, it stinks too bad in here. I'm gonna throw up.' Deanna heaved dramatically over the catwalk rail and then froze in her tracks as a big multi-armed and multi-legged metallic spider-thing sauntered up to the top of the first debris pile just beneath their position. Deanna's fake heave quickly turned into a frightened gasp as the machine rose upward and spewed a black oozing mud from its rearward chamber with the thrust of flatulence that only a Martian garbage eating monster could. The pungent odor in the local vicinity did not improve, any.