Marten understood. Eleven percent mass… it left the Martians at a constant disadvantage. Well, maybe it was an advantage because the population could live on less food. Yet even a starvation-dieted population desired freedom. So it proved they were still human.
Marten shook Commander Zapata’s hand again, careful not to squeeze too hard. Then he and Omi began to climb the ladder to their place in the cockpit.
It was an exciting ride down as young Ortiz plunged the orbital Mars-ward like a rock. The atmosphere was visible at the edge of Mars, as a whitish rim. Then they entered the atmosphere. The orbital soon began to shake and faint screeching sounded from outside.
Aboard the Mayflower, Marten had been studying the Red Planet. Because of the weak gravity, Mars had negligible air pressure, roughly one-half of one percent of the Earth’s surface pressure. A jet pilot would have to travel forty kilometers up into Earth’s stratosphere to reach the same air pressure as found on Mars’ surface. That meant it never rained on Mars’ surface. It could only rain in the deepest canyons where the air pressure grew heavy enough. It also meant parachutes were next to useless for braking aircraft or capsule-launched drop-troops.
“There!” Ortiz shouted over his shoulder and breaking Marten’s reverie. “That’s where we’re headed.”
The pilot pointed at a rough circular shape, a deeper red color than the planet around it. White ice-clouds like guardians were on its western curve. Just slightly off center in the middle was another ring, even deeper red, its huge cone crater.
Olympus Mons was the Solar System’s largest shield volcano and largest mountain. The base of the volcano was 600 kilometers, making it about the distance from the San Francisco Crater on Earth to the Los Angeles slag fields. The Martian volcano was 2.5 times taller than Mount Everest. The volcano’s cone was 25 kilometers higher than the plain surrounding it and was large enough to contain Manhattan Island.
One of the reasons why Olympus Mons was the tallest volcano was that Mars had no continental drift. That allowed the volcano to continue growing. On Earth, a volcano eventually moved off its underground source of magma and thus stopped growing.
“Does Mars have much of an air defense?” Marten shouted.
The pilot turned around to stare at Marten. “Good enough,” the pilot said. As he faced forward again, the pilot curved the orbital sharply left and then nosed them straight down. Burners roared into life and pressed Marten back against Omi.
“This baby can kill anything the Earthers have!” the pilot shouted. He soon eased the craft to a gentler descent. When he switched off the burners, the shaking all but vanished.
So the air defense was weak, Marten told himself. Why had the Highborn given the Planetary Union the launch and laser stations and no capable air defense? And why not give the Martians viable military spaceships? Maybe the Highborn hadn’t foreseen Social Unity gathering the bulk of its space fleet here. The Planetary Union had enough to fight off a small force of ships—maybe. No more than that.
It was unlike the Highborn to miscalculate such an obvious military deficiency.
“You’re lucky,” the pilot shouted.
“Why’s that?”
“No dust storms this time of year. They’re a bitch. Then again, it would make it harder for Social Unity to think about space drops. The storms cover entire swaths of the planet then.”
Marten nodded. He remembered reading about that. The sands of Mars contained ferric oxide, something akin to rust. It was the reason for the planet’s red color. Those sands were also finer than any found on Earth’s beaches. At certain times of the Martian year—which was 687 Earth-days long—global dust storms were generated. Greater than 100-kilometers an hour, the storms whipped the fine sands to more than 50 kilometers into the atmosphere and often shrouded the entire planet. For about a month, a yellowish haze covered Mars. Only many months later did the last of the dust drift back onto the planet’s surface. The storms sandblasted the surface and anything found on the surface. The storms, however, occurred when the planet was at its closest to the Sun. The Red Planet was now at its farthest distance from Sol and it would be for many, many more months.
That seemed like another miscalculation on the part of the Highborn.
While he admired the Rebels’ fight for freedom, Marten was beginning to become anxious about being caught in the Mars System once hostilities started. What was the Martian plan? Maybe they would arm everyone and make it impossible for Social Unity to control them.
He knew that most Martians lived in great underground cities as the people did on Earth. He’d read that the planetary crust under Olympus Mons was much thicker than the crust anywhere on Earth. City-planning technicians had discovered that although Mars was only a little more than half the size of Earth, its crust in most places had the same depth. Apparently, vast farming domes covered portions of Mars. They acted like hothouses on Earth. What did most Martian’s eat? Marten suspected it was algae just like on Earth.
No Highborn ate algae-bread or algae anything. Lot 6 Colonel Sigmir had spit out algae-bread the one time he’d tried it in Marten’s presence. Marten remembered Sigmir saying it was cattle-food, meant for weaklings and inferior premen.
Marten stared out of the cockpit. Olympus Mons had grown until it dominated the scene. Whitish clouds circled the lower slopes.
Why did the planet’s secretary-general wish to speak with him? Did the man want to hire the shuttle? The more Marten thought about it, the more he realized these Unionists had to be desperate. The idea of being stranded on Mars was unappealing. Trapped on a world of anorexic people who ate starvation diets—
Marten shuddered at the idea of becoming as rail thin as the Martians on Deimos. Omi and he had to escape Mars and get past the Battlefleet before Social Unity re-conquered this place.
-9-
It reassured Marten when tough security honchos escorted them from the sealed hanger in the crater to a large elevator. The security people were lean like the soldiers on the launch station. They wore segmented battle-vests and helmets with black visors, although it left their mouths visible. Each held a needler, which so far seemed like the preferred weapon among Martians.
Did slug-throwers kick too hard for Martian wrists? That wasn’t reassuring. How had the Mars Rebels fought off Social Unity a little more than a decade ago? The allied military of the Jupiter Confederation had helped then, but it had to be more than that. Despite being rail-thin, the Martians had always given PHC a harder time than anyone else had, except maybe for the Unionists on the Sun-Works Factory. Martians were known as clever people. Maybe that was the answer.
What clever trick would they perform to defeat the SU Battlefleet?
The elevator door closed and the packed car dropped with gut-wrenching speed. It made Omi lurch, and two of the security people nearest him grinned at each other.
“You’ll have to hand over your sidearms before you speak with the Secretary-General,” a man beside Marten said.
Marten turned to face the man. The security honchos had needlers aimed at him. He couldn’t see the man’s eyes, just his mouth. It was a firm line. It was a gut feeling, but Marten decided this was a test. He cleared his throat. Omi looked over.
“Ready?” Marten asked Omi.
Omi nodded coolly, as he used to as a gunman in the Sydney gangs.
After that, Marten said nothing else. He waited. He didn’t try to stare the security men down, but he did attempt to appear bored.
“…I have my orders,” the security chief said.