“We’re researching it, but we think it’s the Jovian system.”
“We? The Renegades?”
“We have some help.”
Wei shook his head. “This is crazy. You need to tell somebody, to tell Beijing!”
She paused, anxiety creeping into her gaze. “We tried, but it didn’t work out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t tell you more, not yet. All you need to know for now is that the pods are dangerous. If you see one, keep away from it. Don’t approach them unless you’re suited up. Look, I need to concentrate on the drive. This is no freeway system. Can you go in the back and keep an eye on what’s behind us? We need to know if that drone is following or just crossing paths with us.”
Ghost drove on through the afternoon, and then into the night. At sunset, as dusk fell, Wei lost sight of the object in the sky.
At the same time, the air clouded up with haze. It wasn’t a fully-fledged dust storm, just fines picked up by the breeze after being thrown into the atmosphere by the three impacts, outgassing, and nuclear strike. The reduced visibility meant they couldn’t be certain if they were being followed or not, although Ghost thought they must be, as the item had never dropped away during the whole day of driving, even as she tried to maximize her speed.
Chapter 24
Houxing MingLing Yi (Mars Command One), Mars
Mars Command One started to return to normal, the shift cycle falling back into place. Commander Tung looked over his crew as they sat at their workstations studying their displays. All of it seemed so mundane—and so different to the drama of only a day earlier.
Two men in the command crew were coordinating the approach of a flight of huge cargo landers that would first be parked in orbit, and then later brought down in a crater just to the north of Mars Command One. The contents of the ships were all robotic units and specialized modules. Even the inside shell of the landers themselves came apart in large, transparent sections that could be reconfigured, joined, and sealed to create a huge dome.
The cargo ships had been large enough, and their launches so numerous, that they had caused a stir back on Earth threatening to finally reveal China’s secret to any searching for such a truth. Tung had received word that the Shanghai hacking teams had never had to work so hard to snuff out every blurry photo of the launch vehicles, internet rumor, or blog entry, but they had managed. And now that the vessels were arriving in Martian orbit, that meant a pivotal sequence of events wasn’t far away from unfolding.
When all was ready, the landers would be brought down, unloaded, and then dismantled, before having their pieces reconfigured in the crater they would be setting down in.
The dome would be assembled quickly by robotic units and cranes.
A lot of work had already happened under the crater rim. There were also multiple nurseries full of plants being grown in tunnels that would be used to green the dome. When the crater was capped, sealed, and pressurized, the huge habitat would be turned into a beautiful parkland, something fitting as a proud statement in itself as China finally shed its Martian veil of secrecy.
From that point on, Mars Command One would greatly expand, with much of it freely visible on the surface.
There would be no more hiding.
And there, in a domed crater, with green grass underfoot, by flowing water, and with giant bamboo soaring overhead, Mars would be declared not just a Chinese province, but a thousand people would be brought together in one place and shown off to the distant home world of Earth.
China would celebrate while America would be in uproar!
Commander Tung smiled at the thought, as his gaze drifted from the two men checking on the cargo ships’ upcoming orbital insertions to Yong. The officer sat at his display, working his way through his routine reports and comms check-ins with the first ring bases, all of which were now into their third habitat expansions. Yet, Yong seemed to only be going through the motions. He was distracted, as if fatigued, but Tung knew that he wasn’t it.
He knew what was bothering him.
Yong was troubled by Wei’s rescue and all the unknowns behind it.
Tung realized he was going to have to watch him.
Chapter 25
On the road to Sanctuary, Mars
Wei stayed awake and maintained his watch as Ghost followed the path she knew so well. The route was mapped out and projected on the windshield, so she could drive with no lights on, helping to avoid detection. But that meant putting full faith in both her memory and the route she had mapped after previous transits. While she was confident they would be safe, she acknowledged that something as simple as a fresh rock fall from any of the hills they passed alongside could be disastrous if she hit something at speed. But it was a risk they had to take.
They were both now taking stims to keep alert.
The hours rolled by and the night went deep, and then, two hours before dawn, Wei spotted something. “There’s a light behind us. Elevated.”
Ghost sounded exhausted when she answered, “How far away?”
“It’s small and distant, but a bright blue. It’s no star, it’s artificial.”
She cursed.
Wei was concerned at how tired she sounded. “Do you want me to take a turn driving?”
“No, not here at night. Sooner or later you’d get caught out by something, and we can’t afford to stop because of an accident.”
“How far to go until Sanctuary?”
“Not far, perhaps an hour.”
“Can you keep going?”
She snapped back, showing her fatigue, “Yes!”
After a moment, he said, “I’ll let you know if it gets closer.”
They drove on as the horizon began to brighten. The light revealed a stark cliffside only a hundred meters to the side of them, emerging from the gloom.
Ghost called back to Wei, “We’re here. How far away is the drone?
“About the same. I think it may have gotten a little closer, but if it wasn’t for the blue light, I don’t think I’d be able to see it.”
“Good. Come back up here and buckle up.”
He did, squeezing through the cab.
She said, “I’m going to power up the dusters to their maximum setting and do some crazy driving to throw up a screen of fines, then we’ll take the way into Sanctuary.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Just hold on.”
He sat down and belted up.
She hit a few switches and the dash lights dimmed as the power was drained by the dusters, the roar of the units clear, even though they were back on the trailer and outside.
Not long after, she began to zigzag as she drove along the feet of the cliffs where drifts of fines and banks of dunes lay. Her maneuvers quickly turned into a series of fishtails that threw up even more dust into the air behind them. The dusters scattered the fines, turning the view out the back of the rover into a shadowed veil of tan and orange dust.
Before long, there was little to see. She then turned around, letting the wheels throw out a great spray of fines before driving away from the cliff and continuing her fishtailing.
Soon, she then turned back and continued to let the wheels churn the sand. The haze drifted over them, the visibility dropping as the growing glow of dawn was stifled.
Ghost spent another few minutes driving down along the cliffside fishtailing, with occasional detours into banks of fines and sand, but she eventually doubled back and drove towards the cliff wall.
Wei had watched it all in silence, holding on to his seat, but when she finally lined up the cliff and drove straight for it, hitting another button that started generating a grinding noise from behind the vehicle, he finally cried out, “Where are we going?”