Three hours later, a convoy of open-topped skimmers flew across the Tharsis Bulge, an enormous volcanic plateau. Olympus Mons dominated the west behind them as they traveled eastward paralleling the equator. Before them in the hazy distance towered the Tharsis Montes. It was a chain of spectacular volcanoes: Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons. The skimmers used the plains between the volcanoes, which was a barren desert of blown red sand. Over the years, the Martian wind had created huge dunes similar to those in the Western Desert of Egyptian Sector on Earth.
The silver skimmer in the lead wobbled. It sank lower toward the dunes. Its engine whined. The two suited men in back half-rose as if they would leap out just before the skimmer crashed. Then the skimmer stabilized. A great puff of sand blew upward, and the silver skimmer rose back up to twenty meters above the desert floor. The two men settled back in their seats. The soldier on the left leaned forward until his helmet touched the seat in front of him. Maybe he was asking himself why he’d agreed to this mission. Maybe he was already tired.
The moon Phobos shone brightly in the night sky. Despite being a fraction of the size of Luna, to Marten and the others, Phobos appeared as half the size of Earth’s moon. It was because Phobos was so much closer to Mars than Luna was to Earth.
It had been a long time since Marten had seen a moon in a night sky from a planetary surface. The months of training on the Sun-Works Factory and then later the death-like existence in the Storm Assault Missile—
Marten shook his head. Like everyone else, he wore an environmental suit. It was plugged into the skimmer and was presently heated and energized by the craft’s rotary engine. The skimmer whined as it flew twenty feet above the Martian sands. Those sands were too fine and found their way into everything, even Marten’s suit. The dust gave his suit an odd smell. It was a sterile desert, a dry and sterile world. To the north, he noted a vast, low dome, one of the farms that dotted Mars.
Marten commanded twenty skimmers with fifty-some raiders. Marten wasn’t under any illusions. Major Diaz could order any of the men to do anything and they would obey. So Marten realized he was only in nominal control. He had a plan for that. If Diaz gave him real trouble, he would kill the man. Afterward he would have cow the men so they wouldn’t mutiny. Marten hoped it didn’t come to that. His other problem was quite different. Despite Chavez’s disinterest concerning the Mayflower, Marten was very interested in its fate. Was the SU Battlefleet about to move? If not now, when would it? He had to leave the Mars System before the space fighting started.
Marten sighed. He was tired. He needed sleep. He hated sleeping in this suit, however. With the skimmer whining and trembling, it reminded him too much of the Storm Assault Missile. That brought back horrible memories.
Despite those memories, he slid lower in his seat until his pack jammed against his back. He had to twist half sideways before he was comfortable. That put pressure on his right shoulder, and over time it would irritate an old shoulder-pull. Even so, he shut his eyes. Major Diaz said he knew a path down the eight-kilometer canyon. Twenty skimmers with fifty security personnel and about as many gyroc rifles and three plasma cannons—that’s all Marten had to take out four airfields and seventy fighters. If everyone did what they were supposed to and obeyed his orders instantly, they could likely do some serious damage. But they would take losses. Even the ten he’d trained for several days—
“It’s amateur hour,” Omi whispered to him. “We’re a mob.”
Marten silently agreed. The chief factor for success would be surprise. If they lost surprise, it would all be over. Therefore, it would at least be two days before he made his first attack.
Marten opened his eyes again. He stared up at Phobos shining half the size of Luna. The moon looked like a Cyclops staring down at him with its single eye. What was happening up there? Was the Mayflower safe? Had anyone tried to break into his shuttle?
What a way to buy fuel. He was risking his neck, unsure if the Martians were genuine or if they would have the ability to pay when the time came.
-14-
The moon Phobos was a fortress, the best circling Mars. Six months ago, the Highborn had taken it with battleoids. Otherwise, it would have given the Doom Star trouble. It had merculite missiles and heavy laser batteries dug deep into the moon’s surface like gigantic pillboxes. Before the Highborn had left six months ago, they’d given the moon to the Planetary Union, along with the other surviving orbital stations.
The key to Phobos were the giant fusion plants that powered the lasers. Those fusion plants were deep in the moon that was about 27 kilometers in diameter. A Doom Star was over a kilometer sphere, a gigantic space vessel. The Martian moon had greater mass than any Doom Star, although it was not as lavishly armored. Phobos’ armor was its mass.
The name Phobos meant ‘fear.’ In ancient times, Fear had been a companion of Mars, the Roman god of war. Deimos meant ‘panic,’ another of Mars’ companions.
The range of a laser depended on several factors. One of them was the size of the focusing systems. All beams of light lost coherence over distance. A common flashlight lost its brilliance because of diffusion or the spreading of its light. A laser beam was no different. Its light was more tightly focused and that was the source of its dreadful power. Therefore, a long-range beam needed to start with a large diameter focusing system. The larger the diameter, the bigger the beam one could use. The bigger the beam, the longer it took for the beam’s light to diffuse into uselessness. The second factor for long-range beams was power. Power needed a source. A small orbital fighter lacked a power plant to supply it with a battle-worthy laser. That’s why orbitals used cannons and missiles. A SU Battleship was big. That size allowed it massive fusion engines. Those engines supplied its laser batteries with enough power for long-range beams.
One of the reasons the Doom Stars were so deadly, was that their lasers could fire farther than any SU warship. The experimental beamship Bangladesh had trumped the Doom Stars in range and therefore had been superior in many ways.
The heavy lasers embedded on Phobos were of Doom Star range and power. That made Phobos a dangerous fortress to tackle. Unfortunately, the Highborn battleoids had not been able to storm Phobos six months ago fast enough. Knowing they were losing the moon, the SU defenders had destroyed many of the key components for the heavy lasers. Day and night, Martian Unionists labored intensely to fix the lasers. Two lasers were operational and a third was weeks away from being ready.
If those two lasers had been ready when the SU Battlefleet began to gather at far orbit, Chavez likely would have ordered strikes against the individual spaceships. Those two laser cannons were ready now and the fusion plants were online. They targeted SU Battleships over 350,000 kilometers away, but held their fire.
Almost two days ago, an aerosol cloud had begun forming before the massed Social Unity Fleet. The commander of Phobos had considered firing then. A stern order from Chavez had halted the thought from turning into action. The moon station was still under high alert, however. The SU Battlefleet had taken an unusual formation, but otherwise, had remained inactive since the building and dissipation of the light aerosol cloud. Martian military planners were still arguing over the cloud’s significance.
The forty-five black ice-chunks drifting at two kilometers per second neared Mars and neared Phobos.
That the black ice had remained hidden was due to the vast volume of space. That volume was unlike anything on a planet. Even something like the mighty Pacific Ocean on Earth shrank into insignificance compared to the lonely expanse of outer space. If any of the ice-coated pods had been orbitals using chemical fuel, spotting them would have been simple. Space was huge, but space was also cold. An orbital’s chemical-fuel rocket would have blazed its presence with its heat signature. The ice-coated pods were cold like the immense volume of vacuum around them. The inner pods gave a miniscule heat signature, which was masked by the surrounding ice.