S Morden - No Way

She didn’t, so Frank fetched his own and started tying the weapon down to the frame.

“Takes something to kill another human being,” he said. “Even soldiers, trained to do it with guns and bayonets, most of them never kill another guy. They don’t want to do it. You sure as hell don’t. Someone with a spear and a club trying to bring you down in your own home, and still you don’t stick them with something sharp. That’s the right way to behave. You know it. I know it because I was like you once.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Frank?”

“That you want to leave the killing to me. You get Yun, first chance you can, and you hightail it out of there. You stay clean. You leave these XO sons-of-bitches to me.” Frank tightened the straps, and judged what he’d need to chock the barrel so that it fired horizontally. A couple of drum lids, maybe, and a bracket to hold it in place.

“There’s more of them than there are of you,” she said. “Or is that the point? You’re going to be the big damn hero so you don’t have to worry about coming back?”

That wasn’t the point. The actual point was too ridiculous to articulate: that he’d had enough of spending his time with killers and cons, and he wanted to preserve Isla’s—and the rest of her team’s—innocence. He was going to do the terrible things so they didn’t have to. And if he came back from M2, and if he was allowed to get on the MAV and go home to Earth and… even if it was now unlikely he’d get his sack of XO cash, he was going to spend so long in front of a grand jury that he’d probably have finished his sentence by the time they were done.

So he said, “Something like that,” and he was content to leave it there, but she wasn’t.

“That’s not going to happen, Frank. You’re one of us now.”

“I’m never going to be one of you, Isla. Get real.”

“Frank, will you just listen to me for a moment?”

“We got stuff to do, Isla. We got to get Yun back and we’ve not got the daylight to stand around jawing. Just let me get on. If you want to talk, we can do it another time. It’s not like I’m the important one around here.”

He was the shield. The meat-shield that was going to get in the way for the others. Getting Yun out, alive, was the priority. He’d take his chances as they came to him, and no, he wasn’t going to throw his life away, because the longer he stayed upright, the more likely it was that the rescue mission would be successful.

He turned round and Isla was still there. They stared at each other through the near-vacuum of Mars and the faceplates of their suits. His was fuzzed by abrasion and dust thrown up during his labors. Hers was clear. It had been replaced by Fan, and she’d been using parachute cloth to wipe it clean.

“I’ll finish fitting out the cannon,” she said. “You do what else you need to do.”

He nodded. She could see that, so he assumed that they were done for now. He started back towards the cargo rockets, to hack off another set of doors.

“Don’t think this is over, Frank.”

He slowed, almost stumbled. Then he straightened himself up and got to work, cutting and shaping and fixing, long into the twilight, almost to the point where his air was going to run out.

He carried the weapons that he’d made to the airlock, and took the control columns off both the buggies and stacked them in there too, to make them less stealable. He was pretty certain that M2 didn’t have enough resources to mount another raid any time soon. But he wasn’t going to take that to the bank.

The sun had set. The temperature was falling. He was dog tired.

Just like the old days. He closed the airlock door, and cycled it.

[Transcript of hearing Judge Treynor Williams III (2nd District (Denver) CO) 3/10/2049]

TW: And you believe these violations of the Commercial Space Transportation Regulations are both serious and sustained?

FAA Agent #1: Your Honor, we do. We believe there have been multiple violations of four-one-four [414], four-one-seven [417], four-twenty [420] and four-sixty [460]. The signed affidavits present evidence of a clear probable cause.

TW: I’ve read them. I still can’t quite believe they put men on Mars, and no one knew about it.

FAA Agent #2: Uh, sir. We’re pretty certain a lot of people did know about it. That’s why we’re applying for a search warrant.

TW: Hush, young lady. In all my forty-seven [47] years on the bench, I don’t think I’ve had an application quite like this, so allow me a moment to express my genuine surprise. Well. Application granted. And may God have mercy on your souls if you’re wrong.

[transcript ends]

“XO want to talk to you,” said Lucy.

Frank took his time racking his suit. “You going to give me a clue, or am I going in cold?”

“They know you’ve told us about Brack.”

“I figured they might. Did you tell them, or did they guess?”

“I didn’t tell them.”

“We were shouting at each other before you turned the dish off.” Frank pulled on his overalls and went back to the airlock where he’d stashed everything. “OK. That cat’s out of the bag. So what do they want? Did you get to talk to NASA at all, or did they stonewall you?”

“We went up the semantic ladder, starting with me requesting and finishing with me demanding. I didn’t get to speak to anyone I wanted to.” Lucy shrugged. “I got comforting bullshit. Oh, sure they were sorry we got attacked. Really sorry we have dead team members. Really, very sorry that one of them got eaten.” Her mouth turned into a thin line, and Frank waited for her. She shrugged again. “They’re saying none of this is their fault. They deny that M2 was paid for by chiseling the MBO contract. They’re telling me they lost contact with the mission while it was still in transit, and they’ve not been able to re-establish it. What M2 have done and what they do now is nothing to do with XO. And they’ve replaced their whole Mission Control team with new people. Said the old ones were under investigation.”

“They’ve taken Luisa. Shit.” Frank pulled a face. “There’s nothing I can do about that, is there? She’s going to be thrown to the wolves, just like we are.”

“Maybe we can do something about that when I finally get hold of NASA.”

“Yeah. She knows too much. They all do. Look, did you get anything useful out of them at all?”

“Nothing. I got nothing. They say they’ll pass messages on to Jim and Leland’s relatives. They’ll pass messages on to NASA, ‘reach out’ to them, bring them ‘on board’, whatever they mean by that. I just wanted to get some sort of confirmation that NASA knew about our situation, so that they could come down and take over.”

“And what made you think XO would ever agree to that? Did you ask them what M2 were doing here in the first place?” Frank opened the airlock and started to collect the shields and the swords he’d made.

“Jesus, Frank.”

“Points are sharp, and so’s the curved edge.” He handed her one, and she made absolutely certain she didn’t get any part of it anywhere near the hab walls. “We’re a hundred million miles away from Earth. This is the best chance we’ve got. M2?”

“Commercially sensitive,” she said, and sniffed.

Frank took the sword from her and stacked it with the rest. “Why don’t we go and find out what they want?”

“They said they wanted to talk to you alone. That this was commercially sensitive too.”

“Goddammit, Lucy, I don’t give a shit what XO wants any more, and you shouldn’t either. They’re your enemy now. They’ve been mine for a while. You want to be in the room? Hell, you should be in the room. Maybe you’ll see for yourself how they operate.”