The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds by Michael Rizzo Page A

busted PA speaker.
    “One round, near dead center,” he points out what I
can clearly see tore through the projection cone. “The bullet is
still in there. Scan says it’s a regular nine, and I’ll bet my
Shinkyo sword that the rifling marks tell us it came from a
revolver…”
    I’d given Rios the questionable duty of leading what
I didn’t officially call an “appeasement mission” back to
Tranquility: One ASV, landing behind a ridge overlooking the colony
dome, then setting up a PA speaker to boom out a repeating message
of peace and forgiveness; offering supplies and asking for our dead
to be returned. The message repeated for almost fifteen minutes
before someone shot out the speaker horn. One shot, which MAI
calculated came from over a hundred and fifty meters away.
    “Sweet shot,” Rios fills the silence when I don’t say
anything. “But who made it? Men in Black, or Planet of the
Apes?”
    I replay the video in my head: A dirty gunslinger
that drew two pistols almost faster than the camera could see,
fired in two different directions and hit two targets
simultaneously, each less than an inch wide. And a brace of
pristine black security suits—like the last fifty years had never
happened—with UNMAC-grade optics.
    “I’m not sending anybody else in to find out,” I
assure him.
    And I hope our little follow-up effort, combined with
the souvenir Rios brought me, is enough to convince Earthside to
agree with that decision.
     
     

 
    1 April, 2116:
     
    “We are sorry for your losses,” Mark Stilson offers
in a way that makes General Richards sound like a warm human being.
“But we did warn you what to expect at Tranquility.”
    He doesn’t even slow his pace as he and his faceless
blue suits walk us down through the tomblike darkness of the
Station toward the relative warmth and serenity of their
underground garden complex.
    “You’ve been monitoring our transmissions,” I remind
him, trying to keep the accusation in my tone to a polite minimum.
“And you knew your vague intelligence wouldn’t satisfy Earthside. I
understand your lack of candor because of the likelihood anything
you tell us will go off-world, but details could have prevented
this.”
    “No disrespect to you, Colonel Ram,” he says like he
mostly means it. “You have been a good friend to us, despite your
duty to the new Earthside Command. But even if we had given you
extensive data on the situation in Tranquility, would your leaders
have just taken us at our word?”
    My lack of an answer agrees with him. We don’t say
anything else until the elevators take us down to where the
artificial sun shines in the green.
    With me this trip—our first since the ETE declared
their intention to “keep the peace”—are Rios, Tru and Sakina.
Matthew—on his feet again and without a “relapse” in a few weeks—I
left in command.
    Stilson leads us down to their “model” of the
valleys. Perhaps counting on the odds that our Link video will be
piped back to Earth, he wanted to show something that might inspire
hope instead of fear. (I slowly realize this may also be why he’s
kept his mask on: Earthside would surely recognize his face from
their files, and probably react badly to the absolute lack of
visible aging.)
    The first actual face we see is Paul’s, and he greets
us with his usual civil warmth. But I notice the telltale pink
streaks under his right eye that I’ve come to recognize as the
after-blemish of a serious nano-healed wound, and he seems to be
favoring his left arm. And his eyes look older than the last time I
saw him.
    “In all candor,” Mark Stilson begins as if he’s
making a speech, “there really wasn’t a lot of intelligence we
could have given you regarding the Tranquility site. While it does
tap our feed lines for water and fuel, it is far away from the
nearest Station, and hostile welcomes in the past have discouraged
us from approaching.”
    “’Hostile welcome’ means we get consistently