All this time, I’ve always assumed the commander had nothing but liquid helium flowing through his veins.
So…rest. How? It’s too quiet—the chaos and madness of the tower seemed to stretch on forever, and now the silence is deafening.
Well, I’ve got to anyway. We’ll be at Mars soon, and there’s a lot to do before then. There’s bound to be a wealth of technical data from our recent encounters with the Saturnine to look over…and I’ve got simulations to set up based on that…training sims for the upcoming confrontation with Saturn…tactics…flight…
…Mars seems to float above me in the darkness, and the voices of my squadron’s fallen wish me good luck and good hunting.
I finally close my eyes.
* * *
Chief Engineer Maxwell is giving us a virtual briefing. Most of us have to be in various places in the ship, and there’s a lot to do, so he gives us a very brief lowdown on Saturnine technology.
First off, there’s the basic armor of the carapace. We acquired some samples of their old stuff a while ago, and it looks like they were moving toward some kind of biotech like Venus uses. We were both right and wrong. They’ve got a weird hybrid of Venusian biotech and our cybertech throughout the structure of their stuff. Microscopic biofilms not only support, but also generate and repair layers of the armor and superstructure. Basically, their armor isn’t any tougher than ours, it’s just more structurally resilient, able to maintain integrity after massive damage, and even heal and repair itself over time.
The insides of the things we’ve captured are harder to analyze. We picked up some drones and such, nothing major, and they all tried to self-destruct when we picked them up. There’s clearly a lot of biotech going on inside, along with some pretty sophisticated computer systems. While we’ve never fused things together in quite this fashion, none of it seems too far beyond where we are now.
Maybe the whole worry that Saturn is way ahead of us in technology is overblown…or maybe we just haven’t seen their worst.
Either way, we’ve got more information we can use to update the targeting and countermeasure systems in our frames, and fresh data we can practice against in simulations. Odds are, we’ll need the practice for what’s to come.
* * *
Commander Rackham gives us the overall strategic reason we’re running off to Mars.
Looking at the plot for the solar system, it looks like about everyone, everywhere, is going to Mars. Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus appear to be sending nearly every ship that can get to Mars, although Luna and Terra are sitting this one out. There are even a few craft from the independent asteroid nations on the way.
Everything is carefully calibrated to arrive at about the same time. Whoever gets there first stands the best (or worst) chance of coming under fire from everyone else, so the fastest and nearest ships slow down to keep from becoming the prime targets that set off a solar system-wide war. All the farther ships are racing to catch up. No one wants to arrive too late to make a difference in what’s to come. The result is most of the fighting metal (or bio-carbon, in the case of Venus) is going to arrive at the same place at the same time. Then there’s no telling what’s going to happen after that.
Everyone’s after the alien ship, of course. It’s got a reactionless drive, an utterly unknown power source, force fields, and is composed of an unknown hull material. Game-changing technology like that will be in the hands of someone, and we can’t let Saturn control it exclusively. No one trusts Venus with it either, and for some reason, neither of them wants Jupiter to have it. But there’s something more than mere technology at stake.
Now that we’re actually calling it an alien ship, the question of first contact and interstellar relations has come up. Who will speak for the solar system? Will one of the other sides hold the extra-solars hostage? Can any faction secure an alliance from beyond the stars? All this becomes critical now that we’ve discovered there’s a whole wider inhabited galaxy out there.
There are also darker questions left unasked—now that we’ve finally found an extra-solar intelligence, can we allow it to leave or communicate with its home? Is it too late, and they already know about us? One tiny craft easily evaded everything a Saturnine cruiser squadron threw at it. What could a whole alien fleet do? Is such a fleet already on the way?
Whatever is out there in deep space, we know what’s waiting for the alien at Mars. All three major powers already have significant military forces in place at Mars. Saturn has Deimos Base, and we have Phobos Base to counter them. We’ve each got a major ground base on the Tharsis volcanoes, and several other facilities scattered across the red planet. Each of us also have small task forces in orbit, ready to counter the others. Everyone is ready there to keep anyone else from taking over the rust ball of Mars and keep it “neutral.”
So that little alien ship is flying off to one of the most volatile regions of space, where everyone is on a hair-trigger, and the whole place could blow up. Why is it going to Mars? There’s nothing there but warring tribal cyborgs, desert, and failing terraforming stations. Whatever the reason, it could be the spark that finally sets everything off.
* * *
While having dinner in the mess, everything suddenly stops. All conversation comes to an abrupt halt, and people freeze in the middle of chewing. We’re all looking at the same thing. It’s on the screens
