Mars Fire - Chapter XIV - Sol 4
Serialized science fiction
Previous Chapters: Chapter I , Chapter II , Chapter III , Chapter IV , Chapter V , Chapter VI , Chapter VII , Chapter VIII , Chapter IX , Chapter X , Chapter XI , Chapter XII , Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV - Sol 4 - Thursday
The sun rose soon after the train pulled out of New Hopetown, just as they were sitting down for breakfast, and a wan dawn light spilled in from the nose of the rover as the train accelerated eastwards. The sun had little heat this early in the morning, and it was the rover’s internal fans and recyclers that instead blew hot air along the floor as they prepared to eat.
Pope’s special package - much to Dixon’s amusement at the term - turned out to be a type of cheese, which the big man shared out with an even bigger grin as they sat down with their noodles and tea.
“Parklie brie, just the way we used to have it back home.” The cheese had a floury dusting on the outside, a semi-hard rind, and an ivory-coloured interior with an almost syrupy consistency. Reyn looked on with naked doubt visible on his face as Pope cut and pulled the slices apart. “You can’t find this anywhere here, the local food engineers don’t know how to make it.”
“I wonder why.” Reyn took one of the smaller slices, and held it up to the light to study it. The interior of the cheese slowly began to droop down, even in the mild Martian gravity. “It looks more like yoghurt that someone forgot in the fermentor.”
“Pfah! Yoghurt can go suck a rock compared to this.” Pope popped one of the larger pieces in his mouth, and sat back with a sigh of contentment as he began to chew.
Reyn was unconvinced, and offered his slice to Burrows. Burrows took the wedge and gave it a sniff - notes of mushroom, mostly, and a background hint of something else - before gingerly putting it in the front of his mouth. He used his tongue to probe at the morsel, and was surprised at the flavour that eventually filled his mouth.
“ ‘s not bad.” He added a fork-full of breakfast noodles, and chewed. The flavour of the cheese complemented the umami flavour of the noodles in a surprising way.
Ian was the next to try it, and gave a pensive look off towards the side as he chewed.
“I know this flavour. I think I’ve had it sometime before, or something very similar to it, back in the Netherlands.” The younger man frowned, then tried another piece. “Definitely tastes familiar. Pretty good too.”
Dixon followed Reyn’s lead, and declined.
“No thanks. I already know exactly what that cheese is going to do to my stomach. We’re going to be stuck in this rover for the next five hours, and you guys are eating cheese for breakfast? I’ll be surprised if we make Stockton alive.”
“I’ll be surprised if we survive five hours of your cologne,” Pope quipped back, and guffawed in response to Dixon’s eye-roll.
Reyn was the one who took the conversation back to serious ground again, after the initial cheese-tasting had subsided and the scraping of cutlery in noodle bowls took over.
“So what was the news from Command?”
“Major Herricks wasn’t in, so I spoke to Colonel Hayes instead.” Burrows placed his bowl down and took the time to look each of them in the eyes. He needed them to understand the severity of the news. “What I’m going to tell you now, is for our eyes and ears only. We don’t repeat this to anyone - not even at Home One.”
The statement had the desired effect: everyone perked up, and leaned forward to pay attention. Reyn already had a pre-emptive frown on his face, and Pope actually stopped shovelling noodles into his mouth.
“Apparently there’s a Union mole in Command. Hayes and his people are working on it, but…” Burrows spread his hands. “It sounds a bit hairy at the moment, and we have to play along and act dumb while it is happening.”
He took them through the news he had received from the colonel, both the initial comments in his office - and the subsequent charade for any devices that might have been listening - as well as the briefing session outside, via hardlines.
There was a long silence after he finished, before Reyn was the first to respond.
“This complicates things.”
“Understatement.” Burrows sighed. “I’ve been trying to think of ways that we can take precautions against this, but - like the colonel said - if we change our patterns of behaviour now, it might send up red flags to whoever is embedded in the systems.”
“My first thought was to set up a honeypot trap, but, again - if they find it, the mere existence of the honeypot itself would be proof to them that we are aware of their presence.” Reyn frowned as he thought.
“It needs to be random.” Dixon had his elbows on the tabletop and his spork in both hands, tapping the utensil against his chin as he mused. “Or look random, to them. A trap isn’t a trap if it is actually just an accident.”
“My thoughts too, but we can only play that card once. The second time it happens, it becomes a pattern to them.” Burrows nodded in Ian’s direction. “Like our border hike next week with Ian. It’s already in the system, so if we change anything now, we cannot ever do the same thing again.”
“We could make our mission planning vague, to allow for wriggle room with the implementation, but…” Reyn trailed off even as he talked. “That would also be a change, wouldn’t it. If they can access those reports in the first place, to track our movement, then they would know how detailed and concise we usually are. If we now go vague all of a sudden - red flag.”
“I think this is why the colonel and his team are having so much trouble with this thing. If the enemy can read your thoughts, how do you fool him?” Burrows leaned back and crossed his arm. The galley seating space was not exactly spacious or comfortable. “It’s like playing chess or cards against yourself, you can’t lie.”
Pope bolted up, a flash of realisation crossing his face.
“That’s it! That’s exactly it! Intentional randomness - that’s our cover.”
The other four men looked confused.
“What are you on about?” Burrows frowned as Pope sank back into his seat again with a big grin splitting his face.
“Intentional randomness. Any process that gives random results by design.” Pope punctuated the last words by stabbing the tiny tabletop with his spork. “Simple example: rolling dice, when you’re gambling. The act of rolling is the same every time, but the results are random by design. So when someone asks you what the results are going to be, you literally cannot give them an exact answer. You have a range of possible outcomes, sure, but knowing exactly which one is going to appear is impossible in advance. You can only assign a chance to each, and then pick one possible outcome based on that.”
“That’s what we call a stochastic variable, I believe,” Dixon offered.
“Yeah yeah, same thing.” Pope waved him off before continuing. “We just need to plan our missions in such a way that we keep doing those things which have randomness built into them by design. Two weeks ago was a good example: the hike out to Mercury Valley.”
“Yes, the satellite that came down.” Reyn’s eyes narrowed in thought. “We knew the area it was in, roughly, but not exactly where.”
“Exactly - and finding it was not guaranteed either. So there was randomness in whether we’d actually find it or not, and in where exactly it would show up. Anyone looking at that mission briefing, on system, would have had no way of knowing what the outcome was going to be.” Pope’s grin widened. “And that’s what we need to do now, going forward.”
Burrows mulled the idea over while the rest continued debating. It risked coming across as a behavioural change regardless - if they now suddenly started engaging in more activities where the outcomes and successes were not obvious or well-defined in advance - but it did offer a potential smokescreen if they wanted to take chances with anything involving the Union. The question was now how to apply that to their future plans without rippling the pond, as the colonel had stated. If there were missions or situations where they could apply this, they would have to consider it - and especially whether it was worth the risk of discovery. Also, not everything could even be randomised - especially not those things which they already had a habit of doing in a certain way. Mars was not forgiving towards improvisation, and a great many of their protocols - for everything from survival to colony operations to militia outings - all relied on set guidelines and practices on how to do things. Guidelines that existed for a reason.
“Let’s keep thinking on this one for now. Pope, good idea. I’ll pass it up to the colonel next time I get a chance.” Burrows stood and took his bowl to the cleaning station. “I don’t think we can solve this entire thing right now, so let’s keep it in the back of our heads and see what pops out eventually.”
As if on cue, Reyn cracked a yawn - followed immediately after by Ian, who had quietly followed along and listened to everything.
“Sleeping time for you boys, for sure.” Dixon also stood and began to clear away the dishes stacked on the side of the kitchen. “I’ll take first watch, and wait for you lot to fall into a cheese coma first.”
Pope, with some of the brie smeared across his chin, reached for the last of the cheese bowl, only to find that it had been emptied over the course of the meal. He huffed in indignation and rose to assist with the cleaning, while the others began to file into the bunk area.
The morning was early, with sunlight now streaming into the rover through the cockpit, but they had all been up since their pre-midnight arrival in New Hopetown, and the hours were starting to stack up. Burrows clipped his gloves to his suit belt, to prevent them from wandering off while he slept, and then slid himself sideways into his narrow bunk space. He had only just managed to make himself comfortable, with the pillow pad under his neck, when the darkness rose from behind his eyelids and claimed him.
* * * * *
A hand on his shoulder shook him awake some time later, and Burrows resurfaced in a blur. His head felt thick and his thoughts sluggish, and it took him a few moments before he could mumble out a question to the hand.
“It’s Will Nicholson. He’s on the rover channel, and he’s insisting on speaking with you.” The hand turned out to belong to Dixon, whose concern was clearly visible as he stepped back to allow Burrows to roll out of the bunk. “I tried getting him to talk to me, but he only wants you at this point.”
A sleep-soaked part of Burrows’ mind marvelled at the fact that Dixon had managed that last sentence without a joke, before he hauled himself up and stepped past the man to get into the galley. Everything had been cleaned and stowed away, and only the yellow container with the rest of Pope’s cheese stood out where it was locked into one of the side racks. There was a distinct heavy smell of cheese and bodily functions in both the galley and the bunk area. No-one else appeared to be awake in the rover.
“Driver station, channel seven,” Dixon explained as Burrows advanced to the front of the rover. “He’ll be on main speaker when you answer.”
Slumping into the driver seat - which offered a view of the flatbed and rover ahead, with dunes streaking past on each side - Burrows fiddled with the control panel for a bit before he managed to open the channel which Dixon had indicated.
“Cora-1, this is Exeter-66. Go ahead.”
“Burrows, is that you?” Nicholson’s voice was sharp over the speakers. “Sorry to wake you, but something has come up, and I need help.”
Straight to the point, as always. Burrows had to stifle a fresh yawn as he homed in on the rover band that Nicholson was transmitting on.
“Talk to me, Nicholson. Where are you - also on the train?”
“Three ahead of you, I think. I saw your team when we strapped down.” Nicholson’s link dropped off for a moment before returning. “I just got word from my people at Cora Springs. Those Union dogs have set up camp at our one mining claim, and there is now a standoff between their people and some of my people. They need backup.”
Burrows checked his forearm display, where it showed the time as just after ten in the morning. He had managed only about three hours of sleep.
“We’re still an hour out of Stockton, and once we unload it’s another seven hours to Cora Springs.” Burrows turned around to point at the map table, only to see Dixon already working on it to pull up the relevant areas. “We’re talking about eight or nine hours before we can get there.”
“I know how far it is, damnit!” Nicholson snapped, followed by the sound of a deep sigh over the speakers. “I’m sorry. This is not what I wanted to deal with today, and I am out of options here. The other local militia units are out on patrols and railway runs. They cannot get there before us.”
“I’m looking at the maps now. Give us a moment.” Burrows muted their side of the channel before turning back to Dixon. “What’s our best route back to Cora Springs?”
“Seven hours, like you said. There’s very little we can shave off the trip.” Dixon worked with both hands, tapping away at the screen, and data displays blurred past as he plotted route after route. “We can save about thirty minutes, maybe forty, if we cut through Delman Drift - but if we get stuck there, then we’re only getting to Cora Springs tomorrow, if at all.”
“Nicholson, we have a route through Delman Drift. Best we can do is cut that trip down to six and twenty,” Burrows replied over the comms once he unmuted. “Do you want to take that risk?”
The line was quiet for several moments before Nicholson came back.
“We don’t have a choice. I’m sending you the mining site coordinates now.”
A light flashed on the command console next to Burrows to indicate the waiting data packet, and he accepted it and routed it through to Dixon’s desk in a single step. Dixon nodded as he began to unpack the information, and new lines began to trace and flicker over the map he had pulled up.
“It’s a bit north of Cora itself. We could use that to our advantage.” Something pinged on Dixon’s desk, and Burrows could see a route suggestion flicker up. “Still six hours and twenty minutes, but we only skirt Delman Drift. I think it’s the best we’re going to manage.”
“Okay Nicholson, I’m sending the route plan through now. Our estimated travel time is six hours, twenty minutes.” Burrows sent the data to the rover ahead of them, and pulled the route up onto one of his side monitors to study it as well. “You said there is no-one else in the area who can assist?”
“Everyone is busy. I already called it in to Major Herricks, who was the one who told me about the lack of capacity. I asked if we could get Northern District to help, since they are right across the old Marsden line, but Herricks said they were not available either.” There was an undisguised current of disgust in Nicholson’s voice. “I don’t know who is working on the duty rosters, but this is goddamn ridiculous. How can we have no-one closer available for this?”
“It does seem kind of odd, yes.” Burrows looked over at Dixon, who just raised his eyebrows and shook his head before continuing with his map work. “I’ll make some calls and see if I can scrape up something.”
“Thank you. Sorry about snapping earlier. I’ll let you know if I get more news from Herricks.”
“We’ll be in touch.” Burrows closed the channel, before turning to frown at the map on the screen next to him. Cora Springs was a green diamond between the rocky ridges of the Fisk-Horten and Ganymede ranges, and the other outposts around it formed a scattering of more green points. Their own Home One lay to the south-southwest of Cora Springs, and was about four hours away - barring the intervening terrain like Gambi Ridge. Had they been home already, it would have been a much quicker trip to make up.
“Okay, I’m going to say it.” Dixon looked up from the map table and pursed his lips before continuing. “This timing is suspicious.”
“Why?” Burrows drew the question out.
“We just got this news from Colonel Hayes about a mole, and now - when we are away from home - this suddenly happens.” Dixon manipulated something on the map, and a range indicator appeared on Burrows’ map as well, showing the distance from the Cora Springs mining site to the DMZ. “You’re looking at about four hundred kilometres to the border, and a Union team travels through all of that to make trouble at Cora on the one day that we are on the literal opposite side of the state?”
Burrows studied the map again. The distances in Bear State - and on Mars, in general - were vast, and much of the travel across it was limited by the speeds they could manage with the rovers. Pushing the rovers past fifty kilometres per hour would drastically increase the risk of accidents, purely through the combination of speed, non-existent roads, and low gravity. A bump or bounce, at high speed in low gravity, could easily send even a multi-ton rover flying into the air - and when all of that came down again, it was a pile-up of epic proportions nine times out of ten. So when it came to route planning, fifty was effectively their max speed at any time. The railway lines managed four times that, but were a different matter altogether.
“So for the sake of argument, let’s look at the maths.” Burrows ran the numbers in his head. “That Union team probably took around nine hours, max, to cover that distance. If they arrived at the mining site an hour ago…”
“...then it means they crossed the border pretty much just after you had your little chat with the colonel,” Dixon finished. “Is this a day that we believe in coincidences, or is this a day ending on -y?”
Burrows snorted, and just shook his head. The coincidence felt like it was just too perfect a fit.
“We’re being paranoid now. That Union team could have been anywhere east of Cora, we heard Nicholson talking about them before. That area could hide a whole fleet of rovers, and we’d never see them until they started moving.”
“That’s true. The maths and the timing on this one are suspicious though.”
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that. I’m more concerned about the fact that we have a perimeter gap that no-one in the militia can fill for eight or nine hours.” Burrows scanned through the names of the settlements surrounding Cora Springs. “There should be at least six or seven teams within four hours of Cora, and that’s excluding the border agents to the east of them. Even Alvie Ranch should be able to send a detachment, they’re only six hours away.”
“If the border agents are busy doing border things, then it makes sense. They can’t make a gap there to check out a single infringement deep inside the district itself.” Dixon tapped away at his console some more, then shook his head in defeat. “I can’t access the other CDM trackers from here, I need my secure terminal back home. Then I’d be able to tell you where those other militia units are.”
The idea bothered Burrows as he kept studying the map. The militia reserves existed for exactly this purpose: communal defence and cooperation. The idea that the Southern District suddenly had no-one to spare to help in this case, felt completely wrong.
The news from Colonel Hayes did not help in the slightest.
“I’m going to make some direct calls. I know a couple of those smaller outpost leaders, I’ll see if I can raise them.” Burrows accessed his contact list from the rover’s memory - a local copy of the directory travelled with them, for exactly these types of situations - and pulled up the details of a station that was halfway between Home One and Cora Springs. “Someone has to have an answer to this.”
Next chapter: TBC
(If it were I, I’d be looking at the cheese guy on account of his generosity with his Brie.)
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence either and they’ll be lucky if one of them isn’t the mole.