Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson

perhaps New Houston is the last rebel city left, and they are anxious to be done with us. We saw the starring appear around the perimeter, saw the huge sections of thin plasteel crack and tilt as they slowly dropped toward us. Then we were under the eaves of the building and in the protection of the door lock.
    The plasteel rained down for over a minute. Police troops followed immediately, coming down on individual rocket backpacks. Figures in suits began pouring into our lock from indoors, not worrying about air loss. Andrew and I were handed two of the long-nosed light rifles, and we slung the straps over our shoulders and stepped out of the lock.
    There were a lot of them falling, in pale red suits. But it was a vulnerable way to come down. Beams of light laced the dark pink sky, and the police troops shot back as they descended. But they had to control their rocket packs, and they were falling. Their aim was bad. We shot them out of the sky. I pushed the trigger button on my gun and watched the beam intersect with a human form that was falling and shooting in my direction. Suddenly he tilted over and his rockets powered him down into buildings a few blocks away. I sat down, feeling sick, cursing the Committee for attacking in such a stupid and wasteful manner, cursing and cursing. The common band roared with voices. A beam hissed near me and I scrambled for cover under a building’s eave, thinking, not rain drops but death beams, these eaves are for … stupid stuff like that. I looked up again. If a beam hit the rocket packs for more than an instant they exploded. Little pops like obscene firecrackers burst everywhere above me. I cursed and sobbed, hit the wall of the building with my gun, pointed it at the sky and shot again.
    Over on the other side of the city the defense wasn’t doing well. Hundreds of police descended in the residential district across the crater from us. Then they stopped falling.
    A voice on the radio said, “Enemy is trapped in the residential quarter, northwest. Return to headquarters or to outposts five, six, seven or nine.” This was the first sentence in half an hour I had understood. I found Andrew and followed him to the command building. It was just three hours after dawn, when we had ascended the crater wall.
    In the command apartment everyone took off the head-pieces. Andrew looked fierce, desperate. Others were helping a man who was shaking uncontrollably.
    After an hour to clear our senses and take accounts, there was a meeting in the central lounge. Susan Jones, still in her silver day-suit, sat down beside me. “We’re going to evacuate the city.”
    â€œAnd go where?” I asked dully.
    â€œWe have a contingency plan for this situation.”
    â€œGood.”
    Ethel and Sandra and Yuri joined us, and Susan raised her voice to include them.
    â€œThere was always the chance this would happen, of course. We had to risk it.” Her mouth pursed. “Anyway, we’ve got some retreats in the chaos to the north of here. Hidden colonies, underground or in caves. They’re all small and well separated. Since we took over the cities we’ve been stocking them and supplying them with the equipment we’ll need to make them self-contained systems.”
    â€œThey’ll spot us from satellite photos,” I said.
    She shook her head. “There’s almost as much land surface on Mars as on Earth. And geographic features so impenetrable as to defy belief. I know, I’ve been up there. Even if they photograph it all, they’ll never have the time or the people to examine all the photographs.”
    â€œComputer scan—”
    â€œCan only catch regular shapes. Ours are disguised and hidden. They’d have to check all the photos by eye, and even then they wouldn’t see us. Mars is too big, and the retreats too well hidden. So. We have a refuge, and it’s ready.
    â€œThe other choice,” she continued,