The works. A southern watchtower to complement the northern—but also a command center.
I stand behind her as she takes a seat on a hard plastic chair. Most of the equipment here was likely made by the old, bulky printer-depositor; that is how Mars was furnished, replacing old-style manufacture and factories—but demanding slurries to feed the printers: solvents, polymers, powdered metals and ceramics… All the necessary materials that could be shot through a printer head onto a laser-hardened or heat-set or fusible object of manufacture. Including weapons.
All of which had to be shipped from Earth, or mined and purified on Mars.
Seven minutes. I’m trying to imagine the motions of the Voor buggies, the men inside—or men and women. How long will it take to get back to my squad? What can I deliver in the way of knowledge, strength, advantage, if I leave this command center before it’s even up and running?
Teal looks at me, takes a deep breath, then flips open the cover to a number pad. Carefully, she lays the coin on the pad, then keys in the string.
We both jump as the panel powers up. Lights pick out projectors, which begin to whir and whine after so many decades of disuse. The panel sensors recognize our faces, find our eyes, the projectors align, and color patterns and even crude, unfocused images flicker before us. The first views are external and seem to fill the volume over the panel in exaggerated 3-D.
Teal waves her hand over a flat square in the center of the panel and brings one image forward, spreading it wide with her fingers. We now have a live view—I assume—of much of the southeastern slope of the Drifter, the rear shoulders and back of the swimming giant. She calls up other cameras, all external, and then, with a side glance, the first internals—thumbnails of dozens of chambers within the Drifter’s bulk. At Teal’s command, the thumbnails expand into brighter, more detailed images, rising between us and the dark walls. One shows a sloping surface made of crystals, surrounded by darkness but outlined by star lights. That view suddenly goes black: camera failure, security—or did Teal just delete it with a flick of her finger?
What she’s summoned from this watchtower control panel is a tally of tunnels, shafts, digs, forming a map that turns slowly before us, expanding in jerks as more are added, as more old cameras return to life. The Drifter was a big operation, and it appears the flooding has not permanently damaged most of it.
Coins, codes, cameras everywhere… Multiple points of security. The miners had seriously worried about claim-jumpers, interlopers—maybe Skyrines or Antags, though it seems this place was left to the hobo before our war began.
Soon, the grand map finishes filling out. I recognize the upper works—the gates and tunnels we’ve passed through, along with where we are. There are many, many more tunnels and chambers, not yet explored, all in green. But there are also extensive and deeper excavations, some very deep, judging by the comparatively small profile of the upper works—and many of these are marked in blue and red.
Teal pokes her fingers through the blue and red traces. “My God,” she breathes. “T’ere’s na’one here, and ’tis still changing!” She shoots me another look, sees I have no idea what she’s on about, then blanks the map and expands the southern garage and its “harbor,” another encircling wall of lava.
The three Voor buggies are pulling up outside a wider, taller version of the northern gate through which Teal brought us earlier. She flicks through several vantages around the rocky harbor and sandy floor. “A t’ird of te eyes are down,” she mutters. “Might come back onced t’ey warm. Can you see enow?”
The buggies have halted, having arranged themselves in a defensive triangle, tails together, noses pointed outward. Nobody disembarks immediately. No way to know how many Voors we might face, what arms they carry, if any…
Then a hatch opens in the middle buggy and a stocky figure in patchwork skintight emerges, hesitates on the step, reluctantly descends.
“Voor?” I ask Teal.
“Looks like.”
“Recognize him?”
The projectors whine and complain as she turns to frown at me. “I doan know any Voors.”
“Is he a leader, a scout?”
She shakes her head.
Another figure climbs down, in similar skintight—taller than the first by a foot, broad across the shoulders, brawny. Not at all like Teal, but still homegrown, I guess, since there hasn’t been a colonist transport for years…
And then a third, much smaller—skinny, even puny, and a fourth, about mid-sized. All look male to me. They stand out on the rock and sand before the southern gate, not moving after they’ve arranged themselves in a curve beside the middle buggy. I assume they’re all Voors. There’s a stiffness, a tension in their grouping—but nobody has emerged from the other buggies, not yet.
“Any comm?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not’ing like,” she says. “Doan know about radio.”
“They might not know we’re here.”
“T’ey know summat is here,” she says.
“How?”
Silence.
“Would Green Camp sic Voors after you?” I ask.
“T’ey might.”
“That bad?”
Another nod.
“To arrest you?”
“Common interest,” Teal says with a lost downbeat. “Two years back, Green Camp and the Voors drew up a share claim, for when te hobo draws out. My fat’er helped make te deal, to stay important and keep us alive. Green Camp t’inks Voors might haply force t’at claim if others jump. T’ey might t’ink I’m jumping. If t’ey see you…”
Christ, I’m beginning to feel like I’ve stumbled into a Jack London novel. And fuck you if you think a Skyrine doesn’t read old books.
The Voors haven’t moved. By posture alone, they look apprehensive. Then they turn as the point buggy’s lock hatch opens. Three more Voors descend, another varied group—also male.
From the last buggy, three more step down—making nine. Still nowhere near capacity for the buggies.
But then three figures in different skintights emerge from the lock of the middle buggy. All Skyrines, and all female, prominently displaying their sidearms.
Latecomers? Stragglers? Male and female needs transvac are sufficiently different that we often ride different sticks and join into combat-ready units in theater, on the Red.
Teal zooms in without my asking, and I manage to scan their blazes: U.S. Seventh Marines on one, ISD Second Interplanetary on the other two. I make out three flags: U.S., of course, and—among our favorite allies on the Red—Malaysian and Filipino.
From the other buggies, six more Skyrines descend, also female and heavily armed. Between them, I count four flechette guns, two armor-punching lasers, and a microwave disruptor, effective against Antag equipment in past engagements, but according to recent tech skinny, maybe no more. The last to step down from the point buggy is a Filipino gunnery sergeant, and she hefts a strong-field suppressor, about as big and impressive a weapon as any one of us can carry.
Teal sweeps over to a captain’s parallel bars, and a stenciled name well known to me: Daniella Coyle. Captain Danny Coyle. I barely suppress a whoop. “Holy shit,” I say. “Sisterhood is powerful!”