Ian Douglas - The Complete Heritage Trilogy - Semper Mars, Luna Marine, Europa Strike

Garroway had not been to Mars Prime, of course, but he’d read about the place often enough during the cycler flight out, and he’d seen plenty of video transmissions downloaded off the Spacenet. Mars Prime, the first permanent settlement on the red planet, lay close to the site of the first manned landing on the floor of Candor Chasma, one of the larger canyons in the vast and labyrinthine complex of canyons known as Valles Marineris, the Valley of the Mariner Spacecraft. It consisted of some fifteen hab modules, a large, permanent landing strip, and water-drilling, fuel-production, and storage facilities even larger and more extensive than those at Cydonia. Compared to Mars Prime, the base at Cydonia was a small and somewhat primitive frontier outpost.

This base was smaller still. Located on a valley floor—Garroway could see the distant red cliffs, mostly still lost in shadow but capped by gleaming gold, the reflected light of the rising sun—it was a small outstation of some kind, consisting of a single hab partly covered over by sand and piles of bulldozed regolith. A Mars cat was parked nearby, but Garroway could see no drilling or fuel-production facilities, no storage structures, nothing, in fact, other than the hab, the cat, and the grounded shuttle.

Lieutenant Russel King, standing nearby, turned to him. “So what do we do now, Major?”

Garroway blinked at the platoon leader, unable for a moment to reply. Until that moment, he’d not thought about the command structure at all. But with Colonel Lloyd wounded and left at Cydonia, he was the senior officer of a section of twenty-four US Marines, plus five scientists.

It was not a responsibility that Garroway had ever imagined having to assume.

The other Marines were talking among themselves, and with growing agitation. “What the fuck?” one man said over the talk channel. “The bastards are just leaving us here?”

Bergerac stood at the top of the ramp. “We are not monsters,” he told them, “or barbarians. We must have full control of the Cydonian base, however, and for that we need all of you out of the way. I’m sure you all realize that we could have killed you…but instead we are leaving you here, with plenty of food, water, and a portable drilling unit for more water.”

“I think we need some things clarified, Bergerac,” Garroway said. “Are we prisoners of war?”

“Technically, of course, no state of war exists between your country and the United Nations, at least for the moment. Let us simply say that we are temporarily reassigning you to this outpost.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” a woman’s voice—Garroway thought it was Ostrowsky—called out. “You can’t just abandon us here!”

“Silence in the ranks, Marine,” Garroway rasped out. If he was in command, he would have to maintain order, starting now.

“How long,” Bergerac said, “depends entirely on how long it takes to, eh, assess Dr. Alexander’s finds at Cydonia.”

“To hide them, you mean,” Alexander called out, “or destroy them.”

“Please, Dr. Alexander,” Garroway said. He could see Alexander about twenty feet away, out of place among the armored Marines in his blue EVA suit. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”

“We are not vandals, Doctor,” Bergerac added. “But we do intend to secure what technological assets we can from the Cydonia site. For the benefit of all Mankind.”

“What the hell are you babbling about, Bergerac?” Alexander snapped back. “We haven’t been holding out on anybody!”

“Yes, we could tell,” Bergerac replied dryly. “So many papers published on the alien Ship. On the surveys. On the Builders’ technology you’ve uncovered so far. What have we learned from you since you began studying these ruins? Nothing! Some of us believe that you are deceiving the rest of the world.”

“The rest of the world, Colonel,” Garroway said quietly, hoping to forestall another riposte from Alexander, “is deceiving itself. We’ve gone out of our way to accommodate you people here.”

“Damn straight,” Alexander added. “And if you wanted better access, you could build your own Mars cyclers.”

“That is coming, Dr. Alexander, believe me. It is dangerous to leave you Americans, and your Russian friends, in sole possession of such a find, such a treasure trove as Cydonia. We will administer these treasures for the good of all, in accordance with the provisions of the RMT.”

The Revised Moon Treaty had been voted on and ratified by the UN in 2025, the same year that the Geneva UN Charter had been published, and five years after the United States had formally withdrawn from the UN. Like its predecessor, the Moon Treaty of 1979, the RMT discouraged private enterprise in space by forbidding private ownership or exploitation of any world or other body in space. Individual governments were forbidden to stake out claims—even of the fast-dwindling available satellite slots in geosynchronous orbit. The issue was one of many that had led to the American withdrawal from the UN, and the organization’s relocation to Geneva.

The United States had never been signatory to the RMT, but it looked as though the UN was determined to enforce the treaty anyway.

“As for how long you will be kept here,” Bergerac went on, “that depends on several factors outside my control. At worst, we will be forced to leave you until the next cycler flyby, which is scheduled for three months from now. With luck, however, we will have the situation…clarified sooner than that. At that time, we will arrange for your transport to Mars Prime, where you will remain until the cycler arrives.”

“He can’t do that!” someone said over the open channel.

“My God, what are we gonna do?…” That sounded like one of the scientists.

“Shoot the fuckers….” That sounded like Ostrowsky.

Garroway was painfully aware that the discipline holding the men and women of his section was dangerously close to cracking; if they lost it, they would be at the mercy of their captors…and of the utter inhospitality of the Martian desert.

“You should find the outpost hab adequate,” Bergerac continued, “if not exactly comfortable. The still is inside, and you have fuel cells enough to provide you with what power you’ll need.” He pointed. “That Mars cat has several of my men on board, never mind how many. It arrived here several hours ago to prepare the station for you, and to make certain there were no communications equipment or computers here. We cannot permit you to communicate at all with Earth, or even with other bases on the planet.

“They’re here to keep an eye on you, at least for the time being. They will stay long enough to be certain that you are settled in and need nothing. If you do find you are lacking in anything, you may ask them, and they will communicate with me. I warn you, however, to approach the Mars cat one at a time only, and with a white cloth in your hand. You will not be permitted to approach the cat closer than about twenty meters…for reasons that should be obvious to you.

“And now, I must say adieu. We will see one another again, quite soon. Be assured of that.”

Bergerac turned then and strode back into the shuttle, followed by the two guards, who backed up the ramp, their rifles still trained on the Marines.

“We can take ’em…” one voice said.

“Belay that, Marine,” Garroway growled. If those UN troops started shooting now, half of his people would be dead or swiftly dying in the cold Martian air in the space of a second or two.

Then the moment was past, the hatch slowly closing. “Come on, people,” Garroway said. “There’ll be another time. Move back before they light that torch!”

The Marines and civilians turned and jogged toward the hab, putting as much distance between themselves and the shuttle as they could. A moment later, the landscape turned brighter, and Garroway’s external mikes picked up a high-pitched, metallic shriek as the shuttle’s main drive kicked in. He turned in time to see the shuttle climbing into the black, early-morning sky on a wavering pillar of superheated methane.