Mars Fire - Chapter VI, Sol 2
Serialized science fiction
Previous Chapters: Chapter I , Chapter II , Chapter III , Chapter IV , Chapter V
Chapter VI - Sol 2 - Tuesday
The conversation turned a bit more serious after that, with questions going back and forth between the older colonists and their latest member, and Burrows sat back to let Reyn and Pope take the lead initially. Ian’s six months in the Euro colony had prepared him for the basics of living on Mars - lower gravity, EVA protocols for leaving and entering pressurised areas, general safety dos and don’ts when living in a habitat on a hostile alien world - but it had also exposed him to only the Euro colonies’ way of doing things, which many of the ex-Euro settlers in the Liberty Zones considered soft. The Euro colonies were large, bureaucratic affairs which adapted slowly and only moved on matters after much consultation, and then insisted on safety margins which tried to reduce the risk of failure or death to minimum. In the Liberty Zones, by contrast, things were a lot less rigid, or formal. The people who chose to live in the Liberty Zones knew that Mars wanted them dead, and that no amount of preparation or safety protocols would ever change that. Things would go sideways regardless of how much you planned or worried.
The only thing you could do, was to be ready - and capable - when those things did go sideways.
“Have you ever experienced a suit breach?” The question was from Pope, and Burrows noticed how Ian’s eyes widened.
“No, but I suppose it is only a matter of time.” Ian sounded nervous. “I heard it happens quite often in the Liberty Zones.”
“It happens quite often where people work outside, yes, which is what happens here.” Pope had finished his noodles earlier, and now held the empty bowl loosely in both hands. “We don’t have the luxury of robotics here like they do in your colonies. We do manual labour, which means your suit gets as much of a workout as you do.”
“We have a standard test for that, actually. We’ll put you through it sometime in the coming week,” Reyn took over, a gentle smile on his face. “It’s a very simple test: we take you outside, we rupture your suit in a controlled environment, and then we let you patch it yourself. Not exactly zero risk, but at least you can get over the shock quicker then. If something goes wrong, one of us will be right next to you to assist.”
Ian’s eyes grew larger, but he nodded.
“The logic is quite simple: most people don’t survive their first suit breach.” Burrows leaned forwards, stacking his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers together in front of him as he talked. “They panic, they forget their training, they forget how their kit works, and before you know it, a simple rupture turns into a casualty. It’s like learning to swim in a classroom, but never being in a pool yourself. You’ll never know how it really works, until you are actually in the water.”
Reyn nodded along to Burrows’ explanation, while Pope rolled up his left sleeve a bit further before extending his arm towards Ian. Hidden beneath the swirls of the tattoo ink was an angry-looking puckered star of flesh, almost as large as his palm.
“My first suit puncture. I was about eighteen or nineteen. I would have lost my entire arm if it wasn’t for the guys around me.” Pope rolled his arm, and the skin rippled. The scar seemed to have a life of its own. “I was lucky though. The guy next to me was not.”
“What happened?”
“Mining accident. We drilled and set charges, and when we detonated it turned out the rock face was not solid all the way through.” Pope shrugged, and rolled the sleeve back down again to hide the scar. “Instead of cracking the face, we turned it into a giant shotgun blast.”
“And that is one story of many, just from Pope alone.” Reyn held up his hands. “I’m not even going to start on mine, and Burrows here has had just as many.”
“It’s a fact of life here, and so we train and prepare for it.” Burrows nodded towards the outside wall of the main dome. “We’ll put you in a practice suit first, and then you’ll get to experience it yourself. That way, by the time it happens for real in the wilds, you’ll no longer be a virgin, and actually know what to do.”
Ian gulped, but gamely nodded along.
“Next topic: you said you were interested in our security arrangements here.” Burrows leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me what you know about security work.”
“Not much, to be honest.” Ian gave a soft laugh, but then straightened and put his hands together on the table in front of him. “I’ve always been interested in doing military work, but in the Confederation it was not really an option. The Marines there just watch the shipping lanes, and do relief work when we have floods. I wanted something more than just being a policeman for the transport companies.”
“Any private training or simulation experience, then?” Reyn had his head tilted sideways again, showing his concentration. “Any idea of what it really involves?”
“A lot of sim time, yes, and a lot of research.” Ian nodded along, before giving an embarrassed cough. “I also tried to get fit, as much as I could. I know a good soldier should be fit, and be able to walk a lot.”
“Spoken like a true infantryman,” Pope snorted, and also sat back to cross his arms over his chest. “Any experience doing it suited?”
“No. I was in a local club in my area, and we did ruck marches over the weekends. Twenty to forty kilograms of gear, without muscle suits.” Ian grinned. “I hated it, but it was a great experience.”
“Forty kilos is a different issue here on Mars, but for Earth that’s a good baseline to have,” Burrows mused, tapping a finger against his chin. “Other than the fitness aspect, do you know how security works in the Liberty Zones?”
Ian shook his head, and Burrows continued without pause.
“Firstly, each Liberty Zone is different. For most of us, the only thing we have in common is the fact that we all fall under the same independent category. We have no official affiliations with the Euros, with NorAm, and especially not with the Union.”
“So security matters differ from zone to zone,” Burrows continued. “Here in the Bear State, we have a long history of using local militias to enforce the law and get things done. New Hopetown does not have the money to maintain a standing professional force, so we instead levy militia troops from each settlement in the State that wants protection.” Burrows gave a wry smile. “Many of the Bear State citizens also came from police states on Earth, or were born to parents who had fled those states, so no-one here is eager to repeat that and have a large centralised military under government control again.”
Pope raised his one hand, and gave a sombre nod.
“British parents, here. They got out while they could, and then had me as a big Up Yours to the government.” The sombre face cracked into a grin. “Proper anti-establishment types. They would spin in their graves if they knew I was in the militia here.”
“We have all types here, yes,” Burrows grinned back, “and some of them are actually quite capable. So instead of government troops, we have the militias. The official name is the Colonial Defense Militia, which is the umbrella organisation that manages things out of New Hopetown. The CDM covers all security matters in Bear State. You would have met some of their people when you passed through.”
“I spoke to some of them, yes. I remember there was a Colonel Hayes who signed my release papers at some point.” Ian frowned as something evidently crossed his mind. “But how would it work with me being an outsider here?”
“You being a Euro citizen has the same weight out here as Pope being a Seven Craters Federation citizen.” Reyn inclined his head to Pope. “No offence intended, Pope.”
“It’s okay, I know what you mean.” Pope sounded calm, but Burrows spotted the tic along his jaw before the big man continued. “Quick history lesson for you, Ian: have you ever heard of the Seven Craters Federation?”
The young man shook his head, and Pope continued.
“North-east of here used to be another Liberty Zone called Seven Craters Federation. It only actually had six major craters, but don’t ask me why the name says otherwise.” Pope looked off to the side, towards the centre of the main dome, and his eyes seemed to be looking at something else. “It was a rough place, but it had potential, and it had freedom. We did what we had to to survive, and it was ours. My parents moved there, and had me about thirty-five years ago.”
“Then, about five years ago, things changed.” Pope uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on the edge of the table. Skin turned white across his knuckles as his stained hands tightened into fists. “The Union, the APU, came across our borders. They took over everything. Colonies, outposts, mining claims, science rigs, even the smallest wildcatter habitats. They destroyed the outposts that refused to cooperate, and chased those people out into the wilds. The bigger settlements, they took over and enforced their own laws on.”
Burrows knew the story, and it still pained him to hear the anguish in the big man’s voice.
“I was north of here, in Rhodes on a supply run, when it happened. The first news we got was from e-stations going quiet in Seven Craters, and by the time people here figured it out, the Union troops were already in charge of all the border stations closest to Bear State. Anyone trying to head back into Seven Craters was being rounded up and passed back to the filtration camps they set up at our major hubs.” Pope gave a smile that showed teeth but no joy. “In the space of three days, Seven Craters ceased to exist. The Union ate it whole, and everything inside it stopped existing.”
Pope swallowed hard, and Burrows knew what was coming next. Ian, enthralled by the story and still naive, leaned closer.
“My parents, my wife, and my two sons.” Pope ticked each one off finger by finger. “The last time I saw or heard anything from them, was the day I left Seven Craters to get supplies at Rhodes.”
Pope sighed, and Burrows heard the fatigue and anger burning deep inside the man.
“So you being Euro, means exactly jack shit out here,” Pope concluded, and pointed a finger at the blue and yellow Euro colony flag on the shoulder of Ian’s singlesuit. “The Union does not care, and if their people capture you out here, no-one will ever hear from you again. The Union does not allow individualism, and when you get taken, you cease to exist.”
There was silence for a long moment after Pope stopped speaking. Ian looked lost for words, and gave a pleading glance in Burrow’s direction.
“So what Pope is saying, is that out here, this close to the Union border, we don’t distinguish between who is Bear State and who is not.” Burrows stepped into the silence. “When we deal with the Union and their people, they see only two camps: Union, and Everyone Else. As of right now, you are Everyone Else. That makes you as much of a target as the rest of us - and if you are going to be targeted like us, you might as well fight with us.”
“With some training first, obviously,” Reyn interjected. “We obviously cannot give you access to all of our special Martian alien weaponry right away, but we can teach you how to use a carbine and do basic field manoeuvres out here.”
“Yeah, please don’t expose him to Dixon right away.” Pope’s voice cracked a bit when he spoke, but after clearing his throat he was back to his old self. “We need this young man to be sane and sober enough to build fish tanks first.”
“Speaking of training: the Alvie Ranch request.” Burrows pulled his compad out as he talked, and opened the message from earlier in the morning. Reyn and Pope produced similar texts on their own devices. “This would actually be a great opportunity for Ian to get hands-on with how the CDM works.”
“Shotgun duty on a Martian stagecoach - not a bad start,” Reyn mused. “I have capacity open tomorrow, so I’m signing up. I’m assuming you all are also…?”
Burrows nodded, as did Pope.
“I can pass off my mining shift to Caleb, he owes me one. They just have routine maintenance work scheduled for tomorrow anyway.”
“The escort duty is from Alvie to Culheimer station. I assume they won’t need us all the way to New Hopetown?” Reyn was looking at the message details on his compad, and Burrows took a moment to study the same text. Details were sparse, but these types of requests usually were.
“Probably not. Once they are on the rail link, they should be safe all the way through to the end.” Burrows pulled at his chin as he thought.
“However, now that I think about it - we might as well go all the way to New Hopetown and do a supply run. The Jade-fall this morning is going to play hell on the supply schedules, and we should stock up while we can. Things are going to get tight in the coming weeks if those repairs take longer than expected.”
“I’m sorry, what is a Jade-fall?”
“Another blessing from the Union,” Pope snorted in response to Ian’s question. “Do you remember the Jade Lion incident from about thirty, thirty-five years ago?”
“I read about it, yes. It was supposed to be a new technology, but the ship had an accident in orbit here?”
“That’s putting it mildly. It fucking exploded and put a giant belt of radiation and debris in orbit.” Pope mimed an explosion with his hands. “Fourteen experimental atomic piles, and two of them go critical just as the Lion pulls into orbit next to Phobos. Now it rains radioactive junk all over Mars, at the worst possible times and places.”
“Most of the estimates say we have about fifteen to twenty years left before the last of the big pieces come down. After that it will just be buggy-sized or smaller.” Burrows had seen some of the models himself, and those schedules had been optimistic. Reality was probably going to be another fifty years of burnt, irradiated junk cratering down all over Mars. “Of course, if you drop a buggy-sized metal chunk from orbit, it still makes a mess whenever it hits. The thin atmosphere here means the debris doesn’t burn up when it de-orbits. Same for all the meteor impacts around here. It was already dangerous when we first arrived, and the Union has now made it exponentially worse.”
“But doesn’t it affect their own areas too?” Ian frowned as he considered the idea.
“It does, and I don’t think we’ll ever know what the toll is behind their borders.” Reyn shrugged. “They see their people as replaceable, so deaths and inconveniences from things like these simply don’t matter to them. As long as their mining operations can continue, everything else is secondary.”
“They also have no interest in cleaning up the orbital paths, and have repeatedly turned down offers of help from your Confederation and the NorAms.” This time it was Burrows’ turn to frown, and shake his head. “They still claim that NorAm was behind the original accident, and if there is still sensitive tech left in orbit, they sure as hell don’t want anyone getting their hands on it either.”
“Which then brings us back to this morning, and the Jade-fall that wiped out the rail line from New Hopetown.” Burrows dipped his one fingertip into his now-empty noodle bowl, and used the remnants of broth to sketch out a crude map on the table.
“Bear State is roughly a triangle, with a main city at each point. Or a sideways pyramid, if you think like Pope. On the western side we have New Hopetown, which is where you came in. That’s our capital.” Burrows made a dot on the table to represent the capital, then moved his finger about twenty centimetres to the right and made a second dot. “Directly east from the capital, and almost right on the equator, we have Stockton. That’s the youngest of the cities, and it basically acts as a railyard for everything moving around in the Northern and Southern Districts.”
Burrows made two more dots, one above and one below Stockton, so that they formed a new vertical line.
“North of Stockton is Rhodes. We used to get a lot of our water from there, from a pipeline that runs to the Euro polar station. Now it mainly acts as a trade hub with the Argos Technostate to the north.”
Burrows pointed to the bottom-most dot.
“South of Stockton, you get Culheimer. That’s our destination tomorrow. Full name is Cullinan-Oppenheimer, but no-one calls it that any more. It goes back to the old DBMC days.”
“De Beers Mars Colony, to continue the history lesson,” Reyn added. “They prospected and claimed most of this state initially, which is why their names are still everywhere.”
Pope turned and pointed at one of the nearby support beams for the geodesic dome. A small plaque bearing the letters DBMC1 and an emblem - a blue diamond superimposed over an orange planet, with a red 1 superimposed over the diamond - was welded to the side of the beam.
“And then they went bankrupt when the Union flooded the diamond market about thirty years ago.” Pope pointed at the geodesic dome above them next. “Something like seventy to eighty percent of all diamonds now come from those Union factories on Luna. Industrial, tooling, jewellery - everything. After the massive expenses in setting up the colony here, De Beers just folded when their market share collapsed.”
“Right - which is why this is now a Liberty Zone, and not a corporate wage-slave zone.” Burrows grinned. “The official De Beers name got abandoned after that, then someone miscaptured it on a transmission log one day, and all of this became Bear State.”
Ian burst out in incredulous laughter.
“You mean your entire state is named after a typing mistake?”
Burrows shared a look with the other men at the table, and the three of them grinned in unison.
“Yes. A typing mistake that never got fixed because people were too busy with other, more important things.” Burrows shook his head. “Also a warning to all of our people: every day you don’t fix something, it becomes a bigger problem. So it’s a double lesson, depending on how you look at it.”
Burrows made a last dot to the left of New Hopetown.
“West of New Hopetown is the Schiaparelli crater. New Hopetown sits close to the eastern rim of the crater, and the Bear State border ends on the western side of the crater.” Burrows drew a short line between New Hopetown and Schiaparelli. “Our main rail transit line runs through the crater, and takes all of our heavy cargo back to the west. High-priority and sensitive cargo goes through the slow-gate station in New Hopetown, but the rest all goes by rail. It’s cheap and effective, and mostly runs by itself until it gets to our markets out in the Free Red State and the Bordeaux manufactories near your Euro zones.”
“Speaking of rail - did you come in by rail, or by slow-gate?”
“I took a slow-gate from Earth to Mars, and then a train from the Euro colony out to New Hopetown,” Ian responded to Reyn’s question. “It was just before the gates started glitching six months ago, so I guess I was lucky.”
“You were damn lucky, yes. Whatever is going on with the gates has been hell on our shipment routines.” Pope scowled, then seemed to make a conscious effort to straighten his face again. “It affects all the gates here on Mars, even the Union ones, so it’s definitely not something they are doing.”
“Who knows what it is. The NorAms have a theory about some solar radiation band that we have drifted into, but it only explains half the issues.” Burrows had been following the debate with only half an ear, and had little time or patience these days for whatever wild new theory was being spun out to explain why the slow-gates were misbehaving. They still worked, and cargoes still went where they were supposed to - but the energy ratios were all over the place, and trips that should have taken minutes now took hours, or sometimes seconds.
The best part of the puzzle was that the slow-gates around Earth and Luna, and the experimental gate in Jupiter orbit, were not experiencing any of the same glitches. It was just Mars, and the gates in Mars orbit, that misbehaved.
“Anyway. So if you came into Bear State by rail, then you went through the Schiaparelli crater - and that line is now wrecked. We had a Jade-fall this morning right across the line.” Burrows searched around for one of the cleaning rags, and wiped all the dots away. “That means shortages, and that means we need to buy what we can while we can. So then the Alvie Ranch escort duty actually works out well for us.”
There were nods around the table, including from Ian - who Burrows figured was starting to follow the explanations, if not necessarily understanding all the deeper moving parts yet.
“I’ll pull up the Home One shopping list and see what we can fit into the run, then.” Reyn already had his compad out, and was flicking through the colony’s register of things that it needed. The centralised shopping list, for people visiting other colonies and outposts outside Home One, made it easy for colony members to pick up things that happened to be along their route. “We’ll probably need two rovers then, for the extra cargo capacity.”
“My thoughts as well. I’ll take Ian with me, and you two can take the second rover.” Burrows thought for a moment. “I’ll check with Dixon, but he’ll probably stay behind to finish wiring the sensor masts for our contract.”
“If you tell him we’re going to New Hopetown, I wouldn’t bet on him staying behind,” Pope mused. “You know how he gets around those artist types.”
“He feels at home, which is probably exactly why he’d want to go. Fair enough. He can ride with us then.” Burrows thought for a moment longer. “It means I also need to hustle and finish up as much of those mast assemblies as I can before we head out. The fabricators can at least run while we are away.”
“Speaking of fabrication: I am needed at Botany.” Reyn checked his wristwatch and stood, and all four men were on their feet moments later. “Time to find out what I can do for Miss Packrisamy and her issue with Botany Five.”
“I’m sure she’s eager for your assistance,” Burrows replied, and kept a perfect mild smile on his face when Reyn glanced at him. He thought he saw Reyn’s eyes narrow marginally, but then it was gone. “Good luck.”
Reyn nodded, and strode off, dropping his bowl in one of the cleaning cubbies along the way.
“Pope, since you and Ian are housed in the same section now, would you mind getting him settled?”
“I was figuring the same thing now, actually.” Pope nodded and grabbed his own bowl. “Ian, where is your luggage? Still in the vehicle park?”
“Yes, we left it at the bay for now. Councillor Felmann said it would make the introductions a bit difficult if I was lugging a crate around.” Ian looked a bit abashed. “It’s not that much, actually. Just my tools and some spare suit supplies.”
“You won’t need much more than that here, to be honest. We keep things pretty simple here.” Pope took Ian’s bowl as well, and after a nod at Burrows, the two left towards the vehicle park tunnels.
That left Burrows alone in the emptying kitchen area, and he took his time to deposit his own bowl in the cleaning area before heading back towards the engineering tunnels.
Ian had chosen an interesting time to arrive here, Burrows mused to himself. The young man had entered Bear State at a time when things along the Union borders were slowly but surely starting to heat up, and with the now-severed rail link, leaving Bear State was not going to be an easy option anytime soon if things went bad. New Hopetown had its own slow-gate, of course, but not everyone could afford those transit rates - and if there was a crisis and the gate had to run more often, the rates would also go up. Ian did not seem like the type who would run if things got hot - but he was still young, and untested, and you never knew how men would turn when things got hot and heavy and uncomfortable the first time.
If it was an adventure Ian was after, then he was quite likely to get that, and soon too.
Burrows paused for a moment when he reached the door to his workstation. The robotic baby on the outside seemed to be looking back at him despite having closed eyes.
Why did he suddenly feel so uncomfortable about that idea?
Why did it feel like he was missing something?
The thought nagged at Burrows when he went inside, and stayed with him until he finally closed his eyes that evening.
Next chapter: TBC
“The only thing you could do, was to be ready — and capable — when those things did go sideways.”
Loved this chapter — the mix of danger, scars, and survival feels so grounded. The worldbuilding gets sharper with every installment.