* * *
Bertrand is able to sit up in his medical couch, eyes open, as I come in.
“Good morning, sir,” I say. It’s only sort of morning, for ship time. We Jovians kind of gave up the regular day/night cycle anyway after moving to a planet with an 11-hour day. Still, it’s always kinda morning when you wake up yourself.
“Vance…?” His brow furrows as he tries to recall my name. He’s almost completely pale, since his Navy anti-rad nanites are mostly gone, and the effects of his long convalescence on his health are more apparent. He’s lot thinner now and looks a couple of decades older. How much time had it seemed to him? Trapped in that endless darkness, with nothing but a horrific torture program for company. Was it years? Decades? An eternity?
I regain my composure. “Yes, sir. It’s good to see you back again.”
“It’s good to be…back…” He sighs for a moment and raises a hand shakily to his head. He pauses to stare at it, examining it, then slowly lets it back down again. The doctor warned me that he’d have to relearn a lot of things, and full recovery might take some time. Will he ever fully recover? I don’t know—have I fully recovered? One thing is for sure, no one who goes through that is ever going to be the same again.
They’ve had to put in whole new augmentation centers in his brain, and he’s learning how those work as well. It must be incredibly frustrating—to go from a talented elite, to having to figure out everything all over again as if for the first time. Still, he’s gotten through everything to be an Angel pilot, so he’s got what it takes for this.
He’s got to hear some kind of good news. I try. “Sir, the doctors and cyber-technicians who analyzed the Saturnine virus were able to make some significant breakthroughs. What they discovered when they analyzed your cyber-augments helped them develop new countermeasures to protect us from attack. We’ve already used it to guard us from later Saturnine virus attacks. You’ve already helped us save lives, and it might just help us win the war.”
He smiles a bit. “I’ve always wanted…my brain to help people…” He’s quiet for a bit, and then he drifts back off to sleep.
I wait a bit, then nod and leave him to what I hope are now pleasant dreams.
* * *
It’s the night before launch.
Soon, we’ll launch our frames into what will likely be the greatest space battle in human history. Obsolete or not, our Angel frames will play a vital role in dealing with the Saturnine forces launching from their bases on Deimos and from the surface of Mars. Then there’s the mass of other ships, all set to arrive about the same time we will. Saturn and Venus have sent most of what they’ve got, and so have we. It’s going to be a huge, chaotic conflict between multiple fleets that will make the earlier battle of Mars look like a stray shot in comparison. All over a desert rock in space that no one really wants in the first place.
There are reports of fighting on the surface already. These aren’t the usual feuds between the various tribes of Mars, or proxy battles between various sides’ tribal allies. Now, the fighting is going on directly between Jovian, Saturnine, and even Venusian forces on the surface. Saturnine forces shot down an atmospheric flight of ours, and the Venusians are insisting we destroyed a research dome of theirs. Lots of small battles have already broken out on the Tharsis Plateau, and fighting is spreading into the Vallis region, too. It seems like the alien ship has crashed and there are survivors, and the fighting on the surface is over them.
The battle has already begun, so fighting will likely start as soon as we get there. We’ll assume any Saturnine forces are hostile after Phobos. There’s no telling what side Venus will come down on; they’re totally unpredictable. No, Venus is very predictable—Venusians are always and only on the side of Venus, and they’ll do whatever they think is to their advantage. They could be allies, enemies, or allies for a moment and then knife us in the back.
Our main function will be to assist and protect the task force while accomplishing its objectives, which could end up meaning anything. We don’t know exactly what the other fleets are bringing with them or what they’ll do. It’s going to be nearly impossible for our fleets to coordinate as we’ll be coming from vastly different vectors and arriving in wildly different orbits in an ever-changing battlespace filled with the most advanced jamming in the solar system.
It’s going to be an unpredictable chaos.
We’ll manage and do our duty. Chimera and all our other frames are repaired, refueled, rearmed, and updated with every improvement or modification we can manage. They’re ready. We’ve learned everything we can about the Saturnine enemy, trained endlessly, and we’re committed to defeating them, whatever it takes.
We are ready.
Everyone’s got the night off and is supposed to get as much sleep as they can.
If only it was that easy.
I’m staring at the inside of my sleep coffin, and sleep won’t come. It’s not because I might not wake up. While it’s true that a long-range opening shot might cut us apart, I’m at peace with that. Something can always go wrong on a ship, and you can catch a shot in any fight.
It’s not really a worry about what might go wrong in the battle to come. I know perfectly well that all kinds of things are going to go wrong in that chaotic battle. There will be unexpected enemies, tactical surprises, and things that will go wrong at the worst time. That’s
