The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds

By Michael Rizzo

The God Mars is a pulp-style science fiction series set in a rich world of varied cultures and colorful characters. The series is set on a partially-terraformed Mars a half-century after a man-made disaster cut thousands of colonists off from Earth. Left to survive with what few resources they had, the various groups develop different cultures at different levels of technology, ranging from the primitive to the frighteningly advanced. And all fear the return of their home planet, because they believe Earth intentionally tried to annihilate them.

In Book Two: Lost Worlds, The marooned UN survivors continue to try to establish peaceful relations with the competing factions on Mars, a challenge that becomes more urgent when a radically changed Earth finally does answer their distress calls. The governments of Earth do fear what’s happened on Mars, perhaps enough to attempt once again to destroy all life on the surface, and begin moving to control the survivor groups, by military force if needed, placing the UN personnel on-planet in an untenable situation.
The situation becomes more dire when the engineer of the devastating attack that isolated Mars reveals himself, vowing to resist the return of Earth by any means necessary in order to prevent what he insists will be the end of humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Rizzo
• Release date: Mar 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301757046

Michael Rizzo

In addition to writing dark speculative fiction, Michael Rizzo is a graphic artist (yes, all those covers are his), a martial scientist, a collector and frequent user of fine weaponry, and a pretty good cook. He continues his long, varied and brutal career as a mercenary social services consultant, trying to do good important work while writing about very bad things.His fiction series include Grayman and The God Mars. (The research he’s done for the Grayman series has probably earned him the attention of Homeland Security.)Check out his Facebook pages ("The Grayman Series" and "The God Mars Series") for lots of original art and updates.He causes trouble in person mostly in the Pacific Northwest.

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The God Mars Book Two:

Lost Worlds

by Michael Rizzo

Copyright 2013 by Michael Rizzo

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Table of Contents

Part One: Land of the Lost

Chapter 1: Abandonment Issues

Chapter 2: Mortal Sins

Chapter 3: Here There Be Monsters

Chapter 4: No Quarter

Chapter 5: The Road to Hell

Chapter 6: Unacceptable Losses

Part Two: What Is and What Should Never Be

Chapter 1: Post Traumatic

Chapter 2: The Shadowman

Chapter 3: He today who sheds his blood with me…

Chapter 4: Conversations with Friends and Enemies

Chapter 5: Brimstone

Chapter 6: Stormcloud

Chapter 7: Hero’s Death

Chapter 8: The Devil You Were

Epilogue: Cenotaph

Map of Melas and Western Coprates

Part One: Land of the Lost

Chapter 1: Abandonment Issues

30 January, 2116:

The window is closing.

This is the sixtieth day of transmission.

My report hasn’t changed: No reply.

And that’s become soul-crushing. Sixty days of calling for help across space and not even a ping back from Earth.

I know it’s been fifty years since anyone back home has heard anything from this planet, that they’re sure (or convinced themselves for their own closure) that we’re all dead, that the only life on the surface of Mars is a nightmare plague of rogue viral nanotech and bio-engineered horrors.

But we’ve been calling to tell them otherwise for sixty days straight.

Our signal should be clear enough to be heard. Anton and Rick continue to alternate taking shifts at the Candor transmitter site, switching every time a relief flight goes out, still insisting on monitoring the equipment personally despite the cramped accommodations and the maddening silence. They keep assuring the rest of us that the salvaged and cobbled equipment is working, that our message should be getting past the ETE atmosphere net. It’s not a strong signal, and it’s likely beyond-primitive compared to whatever Earth has developed during the half-century we slept, but it’s at least as strong as what sufficed for the early rover missions. If anyone was paying any attention at all…

In the absence of knowing, we can’t help but spin scenarios that range from ugly to tragic to explain why there’s been no answer:

Maybe the planetary quarantine we’ve heard tell about has created a totalitarian ban on communications (a ban that would have to control all civilian listening posts as well). Perhaps they believe that even making remote contact with the nanotech they think has overrun this planet will somehow hack them through their signals and take control of Earth’s networks, even to the point of hijacking manufacturing facilities to re-create themselves and infect the world.

Maybe the backlash against technology (that we’ve also heard tell about) caused by what they think happened here all those years ago has made them turn their backs on the technology that would hear us.

Or maybe the human race is dead—or barely surviving—the planet already taken by a worst-fears nanotech or biotech plague, and the unintelligible background chatter that we’re managing to pick up isn’t actually human in origin. (We’ve been assuming the signal noise bleeding off the Earth is just too deeply encoded for our gear to decipher, either because of some totalitarian regulation on communications or just simple fears of competitor hacking. But what if it it’s really the chatter of something that’s replaced us as the dominant species?)

Rick set up one of the better field telescopes from our minimal astronomy lab to watch the Earth edging closer to us as our orbits fall into conjunction. He’s given us some beautifully clear pictures, which mostly served to make us all homesick, but they also let us know that the planet still at least looks pretty much the same as when we’d last seen it. But that’s about all we could tell from over fifty million miles and without the benefit of a single astronomer in our number.

(The on-planet specialists were all working projects at the colony sites or up on the orbital facilities when the bombs fell and the Discs shredded everything in orbit. There was no need to have a proper science contingent taking up space in an already-crowded military base, which means all we have in terms of scientific talent is what we needed to maintain our facilities, aircraft, systems and weapons. The ETE might have whatever their version of an astronomer is, but they’ve become even less social since they decided to take on the role of planetary police.)

At least there’s been no further human interference on-planet, no sign of the Zodangans or the PK or the Shinkyo or even an opportunistic scavenger anywhere near our transmitter or relay sites, not since the first few weeks. The ETE have apparently made it clear to all that they will enforce their new no conflict policies. We still see their Guardian teams making occasional runs in their silent shining ships, both toward the PK Keeps and toward the Zodanga-controlled Northeast Rim. (Or formerly Zodanga-controlled, now that the ETE have put their technology to more aggressive use.) There have even been sightings in the southeast around Melas Three, likely due to the activities of our local Nomad competitors, who haven’t given up their designs on taking our base for themselves despite the ETE’s devastating advantages.

Wherever the ETE were going on these flights, it’s always been too far off to get a look without burning fuel we can’t spare, but the echoes of small arms fire and explosions have been registered in the directions they’ve gone. We have no idea if these apparent skirmishes were to deter actions against us, or if the ETE have been enforcing their will over the more militant factions’ other activities. The ETE themselves have been frustratingly silent about their activities since they declared they would be maintaining the peace from now on.

While we wait, I find I have little to do with myself but try to plan for a completely unimaginable future (no matter how that future goes). Our bases are secure enough, and there have been no further attacks, likely something I should be thanking the ETE for. I can also thank the ETE for being gracious enough to supply us with a few simple essential materials from their Station factories: panels for our growing greenhouse farm, new filters for our recycling systems, gifts of surplus food from their processors that they encourage us to share with our allied Nomads or anyone else we might peaceably encounter (but most of that accumulates in storage as the Nomads don’t trust ETE gifts and we haven’t met anyone else yet that hasn’t promptly tried to rob and/or kill us).

So we’re eating better, breathing better, spending more time topside, and we’re not nearly so worried about the longevity of our resources. We’re even building something for a better future (and one we can share with the few friends we’ve made). It all makes our cramped concrete bunkers somewhat more bearable to live in, but they still feel tomb-like—more so with each day that we don’t hear a word from Earth.

But the bottom line is we are okay for now: almost twelve hundred men, women and children, all healthy despite our unexpectedly (and still unbelievably) extended Hiber-Sleep, and now under the protection of a functionally immortal group of scientists with the technology to manipulate matter at the molecular level.

So as a soldier, I have nothing to do but play administrator over this base while I wait for something to change, good or ill.

I envy some of us who have a clearer direction:

Doc Ryder and Tru have done wonders with the greenhouse project, which is now almost twice the size it was when the Shinkyo threw their dirty bomb at it three months ago. And we finally have crops that look likely to sustain us. We’re now regularly trading with Abbas’ and Hassim’s tribes, and several of the Nomads appear to have at least temporarily given up their traditions of wandering and hiding to work our gardens with us as residents (though they still insist on dwelling in surface shelters, refusing our offers of unused bunker sections). Even the ETE seem impressed, regularly sending botany specialists to analyze our plants and provide new hybrids from their own gardens.

Ryder seems to be mostly over the depression that made her dare that Shinkyo bomb. I think holding the ceremony for all those we lost during the so-called Apocalypse—even fifty years late—has helped her move beyond her husband’s most likely fate in orbit. And she has Rick, who still fawns over her like a man in love when he’s not out in Candor.

Lisa has taken over as acting CO of Melas Three, which Sergeant Morales has turned into an aircraft factory, taking her team beyond simple salvage. Morales is trying to modify what little she’s got to work with to best use towards our hope of further exploring Marineris. She’s also made a hobby out of tinkering with the wrecked Zodangan pirate flyers we salvaged from the ETE-preempted battle of the Candor Gap, so far managing to get one back into flying shape. (The basic design is somewhere between hang-glider and ultra-light, nanocarbon for frame and fabric, with very simple hydrox or solid fuel jets for thrust and maneuvering, and electric motor fans for sustained cruising).

The materials from the captured gliders do indicate that the Zodangans have maintained their manufacturing facilities all these years, maybe even managed to expand them. And the composition of their solid rocket fuel—a metal oxide mix—tells us they’re also mining and refining, possibly extensively, probably somewhere deep in the Northeast Rim cliffs out of sight of competitors and the ETE. (This also tells us they’re a lot more than just thugs and thieves—Zodanga Colony had some brilliant and creative engineers before the Big Bang, a legacy that’s apparently been passed down.)

I could just as easily have assigned Matthew to Melas Three instead of Lisa, but I felt that he’d make the place more of what it was built to be: a hardened fortress against a dangerous world. Maybe that would have been the appropriate decision, given the quality of too many of our encounters with the survivor factions. But I believe putting Lisa there makes the base feel like more of an outpost for exploration, to build for the future. And I have no doubts she can handle a fight if one comes her way. Thankfully, we haven’t had any further trouble with Farouk’s band, which I assume is probably thanks to the ETE’s zeal at policing the valleys. (Melas Three is conveniently close to the ETE Green Station.)

On a personal note, I find I do miss Lisa’s presence here. She always seemed to keep us (me—especially me) grounded and objective, always had a feel for the bigger picture.

Conversely, I’m perfectly happy to have Matthew here in my old position as Melas Two Military Operations Commander, because despite the ETE’s rather haughty assurances that our guns will no longer be necessary, I still see the real possibility that we may need Matthew’s strength in a fight, and Melas Two (with its greater assets and civilian population) is in closer proximity to what I still consider significant threats.

Matthew hasn’t complained about my decision, but he has been quite vocal about a number of other concerns, specifically those still-potential threats. The unresolved conflicts with the Shinkyo, the Zodanga, the PK and some of the Nomads (he freely admits he trusts none of the Nomads) remain hot-button topics for him. But his biggest concern has been about the ETE, and what their pledge to keep the peace for us might herald. I certainly don’t disagree with him, but I don’t believe we’re in any position to actively take control of the situation. Our self-proclaimed enemies still have weapons, resources and positions to cost us dearly if we decided to try confronting them again (at least as far as we know, depending on what the ETE have been up to on those mystery runs). And the ETE… We have no defense against their technology, no more than any of the other survivor factions do. And for my part in that, I realize I’ve helped create a potential monster, and a potentially unstoppable one.

Those closest to me have picked up on that: my guilt, my helplessness. Is that what’s driving my shift to soft diplomacy and attempting to adapt and assimilate to this world? (Or is it my inability to see other viable options?) Matthew particularly: The impossible corner we’ve been backed into aside, I get the distinct feeling that he’s starting to think that age hasn’t agreed with me, that I’ve lost something very important. Or I’ve become something that isn’t… practical.

In the realm of impractical, Rios continues his training sessions with Sakina, and has formed a study group of junior officers, NCOs and line troops to develop alternative weapons and fighting techniques that do not rely on firearms. I’ve actively supported this project (notwithstanding that I myself used a sword instead of a gun in my last two hostile encounters with the locals), perhaps more clearly seeing a potential future that brings us closer to what the other survivor factions have evolved into: Not just living off the land, but having to rely on something other than limited supplies of ammunition and ordnance to defend ourselves. My soldiers may well need to learn how to fight without guns, without missiles and grenades, very soon. And if not them, then whatever generation comes next, assuming the growing possibility that we’ll never be relieved, that we’ll have to make do where we are with what we have (or—like the other factions—what we can make or take).

But there is still a lot of resistance to this fantasy—Matthew, Lisa and Rick especially in that company—because it’s an acceptance of the unthinkable: That Earth will not come back for us. That we will be here for the rest of our lives.

Sixty days of silence…

Keeping a quantum of hope myself (or for my role as appointed leader of our little corner of Mars), I find myself practicing what it is I will say—what report I will make—when Earth does respond to our call. I also imagine endless permutations of what Earth might say, might ask.

I realize this is critically important: How I go about explaining the situation here will strongly influence Earth’s response. If I describe a chaos of warring xenophobic factions now sporadically pacified by frighteningly powerful nano-hybrids who insist on maintaining their own control of the planet, I easily can imagine the worst response. But if I try to explain things more objectively, the tale only gets more convoluted and unbelievable, and I’m sure I’ll sound like I’m not being honest about the situation.

I remember our first interview with Paul, when he showed up out of what we then believed to be an uninhabited wilderness: He didn’t even know where to start. And despite his objectivity—even serenity—what he told us about what Mars had become while we slept scared us.

We get our first glimmer of hope—or doom—just an hour after the sun has set. Anton has stayed out in the cold and near-vacuum of Candor to confirm his suspicions before coming back into the tight shelter of the converted ASV bay that serves as our (very) remote command post to report.

We just picked up faint signals, he begins uneasily on our screens. He should be ecstatic, celebrating, but he looks sick. And pressured: he hasn’t even stripped off his surface suit. I can see the fine layer of frost that formed on it as soon as he came inside, still crystalline, only starting to sublime into a wispy fog that rises off of his shoulders in the warmth and pressure of the ASV bay. "Not directed at us, but definitely directed out into space, and on one of the common flight-paths that used to get unmanned probes here. And what we could hear reminded Dr. Mann of the control signals sent back and forth from the pre-colonial remote probes. It’s almost like someone dusted off the old calculations and blueprints, or pulled something out of mothballs—exactly what you’d do if you needed to send something in a hurry and didn’t have a working space program. We did what we could to get a zero on whatever’s coming our way. And something is coming our way—I just confirmed that by radio telescope. And it’s somethings. I can separate at least four blips, very small—not manned—coming in very fast. They’re already about halfway to us, and if MAI calculated speed and trajectory right, they would have been launched from Earth in late October."

Right after our problems with the Shinkyo, I agree heavily.

ETA within three months, Rick gives MAI’s best guess.

I don’t like that they launched these things but won’t answer our calls, Anton says what I think we’re all feeling. He sounds like he’s going to come out of his skin.

Probes or bombs? Matthew has to ask.

I wouldn’t think missiles would need the regular transmissions we’re picking up, Rick considers.

And if they were bombs, I’d expect more, I offer.

Unless they’re bigger and better bombs, Matthew has to point out.

I don’t think so, Colonel, Anton agrees with Rick. "Regular signals are updates. I think someone’s trying to get a look at us."

Could be a set of probes backed up by cluster-nukes, Matthew calculates the worst, chewing his lip. Something to get a look, then be ready to burn us if they don’t like what they see.

Our silence confirms we all share his fears.

Still no luck cracking them? Lisa finally asks, Linked in from Melas Three.

MAI can’t make sense of the code, Anton repeats his previous assessments. "Their tech is generations ahead of ours—and I mean human generations, making it a good few hundred machine generations, assuming the tech was evolving like it was before the Bang."

Are you still thinking maybe they haven’t answered because they can’t understand our signals? Matthew tries.

No, Colonel, Rick tells him, shooting down Anton’s earlier speculations, just because I can’t believe they’d be that stupid. If the Shinkyo’s nukes or the ETE digging up their hidden colony is what got Earth’s attention, you’d think Step One would be to keep an ear out for friendly signals.

"You always keep an ear out for old signals if there’s even a remote possibility somebody might try to call in, Lisa agrees after a deep breath. Even Morse Code is still on the books."

Gets us back to why they haven’t answered, Matthew grouses.

This should have been good news.

I’m thinking again about my doubts, my fears, my reluctance to call out in the first place given how Earth might react to the story we have to tell. But I realize: They sent whatever they sent before we started calling, probably because they picked up nuclear detonations on the surface, and then saw a supposedly obliterated colony suddenly re-appear. Our calling out may be the only thing that stays their bombing us again.

Then we wait and keep hope, I tell them. Let’s hope those probes see something they like.

31 January, 2116:

I doubt any of us slept last night.

Anton’s news moved through our ranks like a shockwave, carrying the same uneasy ambivalence it did for those of us that first heard it: Earth has sent something but won’t answer our calls. Is this rescue or execution? Or something in between?

The tension was sufficient to prompt Tru to dare Sakina’s passion at dealing with all potential threats to her master, showing up at my door at 05:00.

Let’s do without the official filters, she begins seriously, sitting herself at the foot of my bed. She smells of the greenhouse, like she’s just come from there despite the cold dark hour—the smells of a living planet, not a sterile facility. Tell me what you’re expecting.

Sakina has made a space for her by sitting back in the corner by the bathroom niche. Her posture is hard as steel, and she makes it a point to keep her black eyes steady on Tru. I’m still not sure—or not willing to be sure—that she’s so particularly hostile to Tru because of what Tru represents or because she is indeed territorially jealous. I don’t see Sakina react this way toward Lisa, despite our long difficult romantic history being the stuff of popular culture. Perhaps it’s because Lisa is both a warrior and a life-long cadre, and not my former enemy like Truganini Greenlove and her former Eco insurgents (now all peaceful and productive co-residents of our little concrete world). That would be the easier condition to deal with. I’d rather not think about the other possibility because of what it implies: Sakina doesn’t like Tru around me because of the way Tru blatantly flirts with me. In any case, I find being in such a closed space with the two of them so tense that I hold myself ready to physically intervene in an instant. That makes it particularly hard to focus on the subject at hand.

I’m still hoping for the best, I tell her as sincerely as I can.

The ‘best’ despite the fact that Earth hasn’t directly responded to our calls in two months? she counters with what I didn’t say. I take a deep breath.

I can only hope that they still retain enough remorse and grief over what they think happened here fifty years ago that they won’t simply shoot first, I offer. If it were me, I’d want to be absolutely sure before I pulled that trigger again.

"Assuming there is grief and remorse, she counters—I’ve never seen her mood this dark, even with what we’ve been through together so far. Maybe they’ve been celebrating it all these years: The relief that comes with believing that what they really did was dodge the bullet that could have killed their whole planet. Terror is funny that way." I notice she refers to Earth as if it isn’t her planet anymore.

And now the monster is stirring again? I follow her fears.

Nightmares have a long lifespan in the cultural consciousness.

I realize: She’s just been in the greenhouse. Probably looking up through the layers of transparent panels at the star-filled sky, which is now threatening what she’s so lovingly grown here. Threatening her people, her family, her home.

You’re the one that’s supposed to have the faith in human nature, I try.

Does that mean you’re the one preparing for the worst? she turns it.

I feel suddenly flushed. Matthew’s right: age isn’t agreeing with me. I hadn’t even thought about contingencies. We managed to survive one nuclear sterilization, though we had better resources and countermeasures then. And if Earth tries harder this time…

But what options do I have? Try to shelter us again? (And what happens to the other survivors living in Marineris who don’t have the benefit of our bunkers?) Get help? (From who? The ETE? The last thing I want is a war between Earth and the ETE, however inevitable that might be.)

Maybe you should talk to our friends in the colorful suits, she prods me in the obvious direction, reading my hesitation. I manage to give her a nod of agreement, and realize the ETE have probably been monitoring the incoming objects at least as long as we have. They might even have better eyes on whatever’s coming, or be able to hack (or at least read) their transmissions. (But how will Earth respond if whatever they sent gets taken offline or hijacked as soon as it gets here?)

When I don’t have a response for her, Tru gets up off the bed to leave, and I see her dart a look at Sakina that I’m surprised doesn’t get her killed. Sakina, for her part, seems to be in a forgiving mood, given the circumstances, and doesn’t react.

I hope they’re just being cautious, Tru tries to believe, staring at the bulkhead. I don’t want this to be another war. Or worse. It’s just that you’re not very lucky that way, are you? She bends down and kisses me on the head, then lets herself out.

After she’s gone, Sakina starts her morning hygiene ritual, stripping off her armor and running herself under my shower with the spiritual intensity and focus of a tea ceremony. I’ve watched her do this most mornings, idly appreciating the artistic grace and discipline of everything she does, but I can’t stop thinking about the way she reacts to Tru, and what Tru once said to me about how blissfully ignorant I am (or pretend to be) about what the women in my life want from me.

Watching Sakina bathe, I realize she makes it a point never to look at me while she does so, though she certainly knows I’m looking at her. I also realize I’ve assumed she thinks of me like some kind of father figure, reinforced by that one night she curled against me for solace like a vulnerable little girl—the only time she’s touched me (outside of a sparring session) in the four months she’s shared my room since showing up out of the desert and electing herself my personal guard. But I flush again when I remember what her own father—who was also her grandfather—likely meant to her.

I’m about to open my mouth to ask her what she does want, when I realize I’d rather remain ignorant for at least a little while longer. I am getting old.

I haven’t even managed to get to breakfast when I find out the ETE aren’t the only ones who know something is inbound from Earth.

Two miles out, Colonel, Kastl shows me the optical enhancement of what we can barely see through our pillbox viewports. They haven’t moved since the sunrise lit ‘em up.

And of course they know we can see them, Matthew adds as I try to make sense of it: On a smooth low hilltop there’s a semi-circle of fabric curtains, like large banners on frames, each square and taller than a man, each white with the Shinkyo crest printed in the center. In the middle of the circle sit a formation of Shinobi, all kneeling and perfectly still around one figure who sits on a slightly raised platform, wearing a black hooded robe and a red sash.

"What is that?" Kastl idly asks.

A tent, I tell him. Or what the samurai called a tent—really just a kind of showy privacy screen to give their commanders the illusion of having walls around them in the field.

You really need to practice being less scary with the random shit you know, Matthew grumbles in my ear.

Would I be stupid to assume they’d know you’d know that, sir? Kastl asks nervously.

Sadly, Captain, you would not at all be stupid to make that assumption, Matthew lets him know. Just as I won’t be stupid to assume Colonel Ram isn’t about to do what I know he’s going to do.

If Lieutenant Smith is awake, I tell Kastl, let him know I need a ride.

Sakina comes with me—I’m sure they expect that. Just as they expect I’ll be wearing the sword they gave me.

Smith sets us down a hundred yards short of their tent, then glides back to park the ship a half-klick off. He’s careful not to sit it in any direct line between the base batteries and our visitors, or on ground that isn’t clear and well-covered just in case this is a ruse to capture the ship (the Shinkyo would easily assume my choice of aircraft from prior encounters—the Lancer would be a tempting prize).

The Shinkyo don’t move as we approach. Sakina follows my example and bows deeply with me at the perimeter of their symbolic meeting space. I can hear the fabric of their banners whipping in the chill wind.

I could tell who was under the black hood before she pulled it back. She still wears dark goggles and a mask, though as they are a necessity out here I cannot tell if she still requires them all the time due to her exposure injuries. I also cannot read her expression—she’s like a doll, a mannequin.

Hatsumi Sakura-san, I greet her evenly.

Thank you for coming, Colonel Ram. You honor us by wearing our gift.

Her voice is calm and level, and almost mechanical through her mask.

It is a fine sword, I return politely. She gestures to a place on the platform in front of her to sit. There are two brocade mats, one slightly behind the other, for a lord and his bodyguard vassal. I take the front one, pulling my sword still-sheathed from my belt and setting it down in front of me as I kneel, a signal of ambivalence (to my left would mean enmity, to my right, friendship). Sakina settles down on the mat just behind my shoulder.

We have been monitoring your transmissions, Sakura begins, a rattle in her voice that lets me know she isn’t fully recovered from the exposure I’d inadvertently ordered, but I am certain you have realized this. We have analyzed the incoming objects and have had some partial success with translating their code, enough to know that there is urgency about them, that whoever sent them demands updated data almost continuously.

I expect they’re nervous, I return, thanks to the actions of your people.

She nods serenely, accepting my dig.

And you are to be thanked for giving my father a good death, she says as if she means it. Because of that, and because you have shown us you are a warrior of exceptional honor and refinement, we have come here, knowing full well you have your batteries trained on us.

I give her the nod back.

And for what have you come? I ask her, maintaining my politesse.

My brother Oda has taken his rightful place as Daimyo, she explains flatly. Nothing else has changed. We do not come here to surrender.

I do not expect you to, I respond, nor will I ask it.

But you would have us under your leadership?

I would have you desist in your aggression against the ETE. I would have you stand with us, especially given the current situation.

And I would warn you to consider who you already stand with, Colonel. The ETE will be your undoing. I think you know this.

There’s what I fear and what I hope, great lady, I counter vaguely. I don’t lose sight of either. Nor do I forsake my allies on the advice of their enemies.

I do not expect you to, she repeats my sentiment, nor will I ask it. But will your old masters embrace the nano-infected who enforce their will on this world? Or will they prefer those that would act to break their hold?

The Shinkyo always have at least two reasons for everything they do, and

A good strategist will win even in losing, I say out loud. You knew that the ETE would have to militarize just to defend themselves against you, and how much more frightening that would make them appear to Earth.

You were one of us in a former life, Colonel. I am sure of that.

You honor me, I play. But that isn’t why you’ve come.

The morning wind is picking up, snapping at the fabric of the tent panels, threatening to blow them down. But the flimsy break at least keeps the rising dust at bay.

I come to let you know that you have options, Colonel, she tells me with theatrical dryness, and that we are not the only ones who’ve been monitoring your communications. Then she gives me a formal bow and rises. Time is short.

Her Shinobi rise with her. We follow suit. They file through the panels of the tent and into the wind. Sakura is the last to go. She turns to face Sakina.

I look forward to crossing blades with you again, Cousin. Another time.

The instant Sakura passes through the panels, the intensifying dust storm brings them down. We must retreat quickly from the platform. We can see no sign of where the Shinkyo went, and they’ve disappeared from our scans in the rusty clouds. Smith flies in and has to guide us blind using our goggle Link heads-ups to get us back into the airlock.

You think they planned for the dust blow to cover their exit? Matthew asks me as I’m vacuuming off.

Winds are easy enough to predict with a decent AI modeling system, I counter. In fact, the winds shift with the consistency of tides as the sun travels the length of the Marineris valley. Even the synergistic variables that turn the usual steady currents into a significant dust blow can be reasonably anticipated even by eye, assuming you’d spent your life watching them.

Nice timing, though…

Sakina doesn’t say a word while we clean up, which is hardly unusual. But I’m left idly wondering how literal Sakura’s use of the word cousin was.

Chapter 2: Mortal Sins

1 February, 2116:

It finally comes the