The God Mars Book Five: Onryo (2 page)

“At first it was just the few: The Unmaker Base Melas
Two, on the eastern border to Coprates. They had all been asleep,
kept safe in chemical hibernation after they were buried by the
bombing…”

The Katar again all close their eyes and lower their
heads. It’s definitely a ritual gesture.

“Fifty years, they had slept. These were good people.
Soldiers and civilians, some of them former enemies, now a great
family. They made allies of the Jinn, who you call Eternals—the
Terraformers. And then they became our friends, after some
unfortunate bloodshed. Their leader, Colonel Ram, the great
Peacemaker, became my brother. Together, we built a grand
greenhouse, traded precious supplies, even fought side-by-side.

“But Colonel Ram was bound by duty to call his
leaders, to call Earth. When Earth answered that call, they were
not the world—the people—he expected. They had been changed by
events, events we did not know about. Most of us here believed that
the Apocalypse came…” (Eyes close again on cue.) “…because Earth
believed that the corporate labs had been breached, that
contamination was rampant. We on the surface knew this was a lie,
an act of unthinkable sabotage designed to murder us all just to
destroy what the corporations were producing here. What we did
not
know is that the same drones that triggered the failsafe
alarms
also
attacked everything in orbit: Destroyed ships,
the space dock, the base and fuel depot on Phobos. All destroyed,
thousands dead in the vacuum of space. Then the Disc drones
attached themselves to the few surviving shuttles that managed the
return flight, and destroyed Earth’s orbital facilities as well.
Then signals were broadcast from the surface of Mars: chatter and
EMR to convince Earth that the planet
was
hopelessly
contaminated. All to keep Earth from ever coming back here.

“But after fifty years of living with the guilt of
what had been done with their so-called ‘failsafe’ and the fear of
what they thought was here, Colonel Ram called them and told them
that there was no contamination, no nano-plague ravaging the
surface, and that they had left behind survivors all those years
ago. This moved them to come back, but they remain fearful, and
perhaps they have reason. Because their return has raised the
Shadowman, Syan Chang, and his armies of Black Clothes and
machines; armies you have fought here, that the Pax have
fought.”

I can feel their questions now—so many urgent
questions—but they keep them in, let my father tell his tale in his
own way.

“The drones that triggered the failsafe, the
bombing…” My father has already gotten into the habit of pausing
for the closed-eye ritual. “…they belonged to Chang. And Chang does
not belong to this world. Not
this
world… He says he comes
from a future where the corporations succeeded in their research
and development here unmolested. The technology you have seen the
Eternals wield, this is only a fraction… In Chang’s world, men had
become like gods,
made
themselves gods. Immortal.
Superhuman. And because they weren’t ready for such power, they
destroyed their world, made it an unimaginable hell. Syan Chang
said he came back through time to stop it all from happening, to
stop the research that was going on here and scare Earth so that
they would never try again. He thought he had succeeded with the
Apocalypse…” Eyes close. “…but when Earth came back, he raised his
own army to drive them away: the Black Clothes, recruited from the
Peace Keepers and the Zodanga, their colonies razed to build his
flying fortress and his robots—and his robots are run by the brains
of his fallen soldiers. But Chang himself is invincible,
indestructible, powerful. And he brought others like him.

“By God’s mercy, another power has sent others back
from that world to resist Chang, to protect us. You have seen some
of these heroes: they fight for you now against the machines that
attack your homes. But because of what they are, because of the
technology that makes them what they are, Earth fears them as much
as Chang. We fought a great battle together against Chang in Melas,
in our homeland, and defeated him, but then the Unmakers used a
nuclear weapon in hopes of destroying both Chang
and
the
heroes. Four hundred and fifty kilotons yield…”

My father pauses, but this time the eye-closing is
brief. They are all too riveted by his tale.

“This bomb damaged the Atmosphere Net in Melas, bled
the air too thin even for our masks, and the radiation made the
middle of the valley toxic. I swore I would never leave my desert,
the home of my father where God had blessed us with life, but I
have taken my people here, all the way here through hardship and
loss, seven hundred kilometers to find a home away from the
Unmakers and their war with Chang. And now… I find Chang’s army
here
—Chang is gone, but another has taken his place, a
greater villain. His name is Asmodeus.

“If you accept us… We came here seeking a safe place
to live. But if you accept us, we will help you fight. We will
pledge you our guns and our swords and our lives to protect this
place, to help you fight the machines and the Black Clothes and the
monsters that command them. That is my promise. That is my
tale.”

He bows. Receives no response other that the slight
head-bows of the Council. Stands nervously in their midst (the rest
of us behind him, but all of us surrounded by hundreds of Katar,
and waiting beyond the chamber, hundreds more of their
warriors).

In the tense waiting, I consider the things my father
didn’t tell them: That Chang really didn’t come back through time,
and in fact isn’t ultimately responsible for the Apocalypse. But
the truth of it…

“
Ambassador Murphy of Tranquility,
” Sagrev
Khan, War King of Katar, commands, his deep voice now sounding
vaguely annoyed, as if my father’s tale was neither interesting nor
useful. “
Tell your life.
”

Murphy steps up to the Podium, giving my father a
reassuring nod as they exchange places. It’s actually warm enough
in here—even with the hole in the roof—that he doesn’t need his
cloaks, so he’s just wearing his travel and battle worn black and
gray Hammond-Keller uniform, his revolver slung in its shoulder
holster, his Forge-gifted sword hung from his ammo belt.

“My name is Jon Murphy,” he addresses them with
confidence, as if trying to impress Khan. “Designation:
Hammond-Keller M-7. This means I am the seventh of my family to
take up the Gun and the Duty of protection. I am from Tranquility
Colony, which until recently was divided and dying. Two of the
original domes were intact, buried, while the third—the main garden
dome—was breached in the bombardment.” Eyes close. Heads lower.
“With the colony unable to support the entire population, some
elected to try to live outside, restore the ruptured dome, or at
least tend the gardens to provide a food supply beyond what we
could grow and recycle in the sealed Hab domes. As our systems
slowly degraded, we were forced to eject more, or give them the
choice of suicide. Thus went our slow dying, and darkened my Duty.
It became our burden to cast out or kill the least-essential. And
then when those Cast began to thrive in the gardens, and sometimes
tried to tap from our precious resources or resist our foraging
parties, it was my Duty—I and my fellows—to cull them. So I became
a hunter. Of men. And women and even children. But despite the
sacrifice of all those lives, our colony continued to die as our
systems aged.

“Then last year, Colonel Ram came to us, told us of
the world outside and its new horrors, and offered to help us if we
would stop killing each other out of need. I joined with him in
this, even though many of my fellows rejected his offer. He and his
friends saved us. Restored our systems. Restored the breached dome.
Brokered peace with the Cast. Brokered trade with Abbas’ people.
Even opened talks with the Unmakers.

“I travel with Abu Abbas now as an ambassador for my
people, to offer peace, alliance, and trade. Colonel Ram gave us a
dream: That if we could unite, all the peoples of Mars, then we
could meet the Unmakers in strength, and help defend each other
against our mutual enemies. My people—Domers and Cast
together—fought alongside the Terraformers and Nomads and Knights
and Shinkyo and immortals against Chang, and we
did
defeat
him in battle. We can do that again here. We ask nothing in return
but friendship.”

He also gets silence for his offer.

“
Lieutenant Straker of The City of Industry,
”
Khan calls out next, with all the enthusiasm of a man reading aloud
an inventory list. “
Tell your life.
”

Murphy steps down off the Podium, giving Straker a
reassuring nod and a quick smile. Straker hesitates a moment before
ascending the few steps, breathing, as if preparing herself for
war. I see her left hand start to move toward the living blade on
her hip, but she stops herself from touching it, keeping her hands
at her side.

“I am First Lieutenant Jak Straker, Third Generation
City of Industry Peace Keepers. When our colony was devastated by
the bombing…” Eyes close—this is almost getting silly. I have to
suppress an urge to snicker. (If I was to face their warriors in
combat, if I suddenly said “Apocalypse” would they close their
eyes?) “…we chose to leave the blasted surface structures as they
were, to preserve the illusion that we had been properly
‘sterilized’. From the appearance of your city, I believe you
understand the value of that…” She’s the first of us to reflect
back on our hosts while talking about herself, but it gets no more
response than my father or Murphy did. “Instead, we used our
digging machines to expand our shelters underground, spreading them
out so that they would be hard for future bombardments to target.
We maintained recyclers, tapped the ETE Feeds, started hydroponic
gardens, and raised families. Lived.

“Our colony was home to a garrison of UN Peace
Keepers, stationed there during the Eco conflict. Our neighboring
colonies—Pioneer and Frontier—also had garrisons, and survivors, so
we kept in contact, coordinated our efforts, assisted each other,
helped defend each other when raiders came. And we also enforced
order within our civilian populations.”

She pauses then. I see her chew on her scarred lower
lip. I’ve heard stories of how the Keepers “enforced order”. I
expect she has as many regrets as Murphy does.

“Colonel Ram came to us as well, told us that Earth
would be returning, and offered us the opportunity to rejoin our
former UN command structure. My commanders rejected his offer,
distrusting the leadership that had tried to kill us all, unwilling
to surrender our way of life, our homes. Unfortunately, this opened
the door for the Shadow, for Chang. He came to us, showed us his
power, told us that we could resist Earth if we joined him, that we
could keep our homes secured. But… The cost was far too high.
First, Chang stripped our homes to make his first flying fortress,
larger than the one you’ve seen at Lucifer’s Grave, and ordered us
to kill those that were ‘non-essential’: the aged, the sick, the
disabled. Then, being a poor general, he threw us into battles with
the UN forces and their allies with no concern for our survival—we
were little more than ornamentation, soon replaced by his preferred
machines. Many hundreds of my fellows died stupid, useless deaths.
Others, not so lucky, were carved up to provide organic brain
components for his battle drones.

“So some of us rebelled, tried to separate from him,
tried to take back our homes. He set his machines on us. Colonel
Ram came again, this time in his immortal form, and brought his
fellows to defend us. Because of him, because of them, I was able
to save three hundred of my people, but we had to abandon our home.
Because we needed shelter and medical care, we surrendered to the
new UN command, and were housed at Melas Two. There, we were
endlessly debriefed and tested for non-existent contamination, and
eventually some of us were allowed to serve in their planetary
forces, though of course in non-key positions.

“I came to be here because I took an assignment on a
Long Range Recon vehicle, sent into Coprates to look for the
descendants of survivors. We investigated the ruins of Tyr, Nike,
Gagarin and Concordia. We began to encounter Silvermen—what you
call ‘Steel’ and who call themselves ‘The Children of the
Forge’—spread throughout the highlands from Nike to Concordia. We’d
managed to get as far as the ruins of Pax when we detected sign of
Chang’s new flying fortress, his Stormcloud. We then detected an
attempt to hack the Terraforming Stations, which we assumed was
Chang. I volunteered for recon, hoping to paint the target for a
surgical bombardment that would have spared you and your lands. But
I encountered something else, and then
became
something
else.”

She makes her bright metallic green eyes glow even
more unnaturally—finally, I hear some noise from our audience:
Muffled gasps and nervous shuffling. I see Khan’s eyes shift to her
sword, then back to watching her face like he’s monitoring the
movements of an enemy force. I know he’s encountered a Companion
Blade himself—Erickson Carter’s—and on the wrong end of it. I also
expect he knows that it was only the character and incredible
effort of the man wielding it that kept it from killing and
consuming him.

Straker takes a breath, measures out her words with
care, but also with conviction:

“It was—
is
—a piece of technology from Chang’s
world, the world of the immortals. It’s changed me. I’m not like
them, not fully, but it has made me stronger and faster and more
resilient, and given me some power over the enemy’s technology.
It’s a dangerous thing, of its own mind, and I’m only alive because
it’s decided to join with me rather than consume me. But I’ve
gotten control over it. And I am still myself. But I can never go
back to the UN force. Earth remains terrified of this technology,
even if it can serve them in their war against Chang’s forces—now
Asmodeus’ forces. So now I travel with these good people, serve
them, and serve Colonel Ram’s dream to unite Mars against our
mutual enemies. Like my fellows, I offer to serve you as well. I
don’t expect you to take my word on that. I only ask for the
opportunity to prove myself an asset, a friend.”