Losing Mars (Saving Mars Series-3) (25 page)

Fine
, she thought. He could get in his
own
escape vehicle.

Only he wasn’t getting in Renard’s ship. He was getting out. He had a pea-shooter in his hands—one of the small weapons useful for taking down a roadrunner or a rattler. Was he going to threaten to
shoot
her? She shook her head and kept walking.

And then she heard a noise that made her stop in her tracks. He wasn’t using the weapon on her. He was doing something much, much worse. She heard the whine of the first hover booster as it shuddered itself to pieces. Pavel had known exactly where to aim.

She turned, running madly toward the second booster. If he destroyed it as well, the ship wouldn’t fly.

“Pavel,
no!
” Her voice echoed in the blast crater. “Are you crazy?”

Pavel’s eyes met hers briefly. His finger tapped the trigger. He blew out the second hover booster, firing several extra shots to make certain.

Jessamyn screamed in anguish, her, “
No!
” trailing across the desert sands. He’d crippled the
Red Hope.
The ship would be a
sitting rock
out here when the missiles arrived. Yet again, Jess felt her world being torn from her. She was losing Mars once more, but this time, it was Pavel’s doing.

Inside her, the fury and agony behind each of her losses gathered to this moment in the blast crater. “What have you
done?
” she cried.

“Saved your life,” shouted Pavel. “Come on. Let’s go.
Now
!”

Jess felt herself shaking. She couldn’t tell if it was from rage or despair. But of one thing she felt completely certain. “I
never
want to see you again, do you understand? I
hate
you! Get away from me!”

“Jess, come on, my aunt’s destroying this place!”

“You’re the destroyer!” Jessamyn screamed out the worst insult she could think of. “You’re
just like your aunt
!”

She sank to her knees just as Renard came running out of the ship.

“What’s going on?” Renard’s voice sounded odd.

She stared at him. She couldn’t find the words to explain what Pavel had done. She heard Pavel shouting again. At the two of them. It didn’t matter. What did anything matter? Her beautiful ship was lost. Like the
Dawn
. The
Galleon
. And now the
Red Hope
. She rocked back on her heels, keening her pain to the stars.

“Jess, get over here,” shouted Pavel. “Not you, Renard. Or whoever you are. Back away.”

Jessamyn felt something prod her between the shoulders.

“Stand up,” said Renard, grabbing her by one arm and jerking her to her feet.

~ ~ ~

Gaspar was furious. But this was not the time to indulge in fury. He had three minutes, give or take, until annihilation rained down from above.

“The battery,” he shouted at the girl. “Did you remove it?”

She didn’t respond. Was she crying?

“Let her go!”

It was the boy’s voice. The boy had a small weapon, pointed at him, of all things. Gaspar barked out a short laugh.

“Drop your toy gun,” shouted Gaspar. He waved the far more deadly weapon in his own hand so that Pavel would understand who wielded the power in this little scenario. “Now!” snapped Gaspar, taking deadly aim at the girl’s head.

That made the boy act quickly. The pea-shooter clattered across the crater floor.

“Inside the small craft,” shouted Gaspar to the boy. “Now!” He grasped the girl by the hair. She didn’t even squeal in protest. He would have preferred a little squeal, but that could wait. Right now he needed to get aboard the only remaining means of escape along with the boy and the girl. He took long strides to the get-about, forcing the girl to come with him.

“Get over here or I shoot the girl,” shouted Gaspar. “I want you at the helm, boy.
Now!
” He roared, wishing Renard had a more threatening voice.

The boy shook his head. “My aunt wants her alive. You won’t shoot her.” Saying this, the boy dashed away, taking cover behind the M-class ship.

Renard could hear him scrabbling along the backside of the transport between boulders.

“
Shizer!
” said Gaspar. He had a quick decision to make. He could shoot the girl—knee or foot would prevent her from running—but he wasn’t sure he could find the boy, disable him, and still make it back to the ship before the Chancellor’s apocalypse hit. “
Shizer!
” he repeated.

Better the girl than nothing at all.

He forced her into the small craft—she was remarkably docile—and set a course for Budapest. “Fly this thing,” he demanded. “You’re supposed to be a pilot, aren’t you? Flew all the way from Mars? So, fly!”

She sat still.

“Fly this thing or I run out there and shoot the boy!”

He ought to have taken the helm. The girl at his side sobbed and gasped and tears ran down either side of her face as though she’d not heard a word he’d said.

“
Are you a pilot or not
?” he roared.

Something in the girl seemed to click. She turned and gave him a look that would have melted icebergs with its fiery heat.

“And don’t try anything stupid—the ship has a CCMS.”

Jessamyn took the craft hard into the sky, causing Gaspar to curse and grab at his seat as they rocketed into the dark of night.

42

HARBINGER

Jessamyn did not speak during the first four hours of the journey. She flew, providing for her hands and mind an occupation, a safeguard against facing the enormity of her losses. She flew and flew and flew.

Her ship, the
Red Hope
was surely in pieces now, destroyed by missiles.

Don’t think about it. Just fly.

Jessamyn would never see Mars again. Or anyone for whom she cared.

Fly, pilot. Don’t think.

And Pavel. Pavel, who had tried to save her. He must be dead. A choked wail escaped her. If death awaited her in Budapest—and she felt certain it did—she would welcome it.

Fly toward death. Fly to it.

But gradually she began to see that her own death was anything but certain. She would face not execution, but interrogation. And if she laid bare to Lucca the things she knew, the secrets she carried, then Mars would stand no chance at all.

She had to prevent that from happening. She had to find strength. And thinking about the losses she’d suffered was not going to keep her strong. And so, carefully, Jessamyn walled each of her losses within an imaginary fortress.

She placed her regrets for the accusations she’d hurled at Pavel inside one room and sealed the door shut. She placed her terror that he lived no more into another room and closed it off. She placed her fears for Harpreet and for Ethan in another room, securing them within. Her regret that she would never see Mars again required several doors, each heavier than the last. And when she had sealed the fortress, she dropped the keys into a very deep, very dark well.

Once her griefs were inaccessible, she found that one emotion remained: rage. And her rage against all Lucca had taken felt to Jessamyn both powerful and grand. It gave her strength to face what lay before her. It reminded her that only the present moment was real. So she flew. And as she flew, she steeled herself for a confrontation with the Terran Chancellor.

What would the Chancellor suspect already—what would she have deduced from the wreckage of the
Galleon
? Or from the destruction of the facility governing the Terran satellites circling Mars? If Jess sent the ship hurtling into the Arctic Ocean right now, would Mars have a better chance of surviving? Would there remain a chance for Ethan to complete his mission at Cameron Wallace’s? Jess didn’t even know if Cameron had deep space satellites.

And what if the Chancellor knew everything already?

Lucca couldn’t know everything, Jess decided,
Or else she wouldn’t want me alive. She wants me alive because she thinks I have information.
So it would be interrogation. Jess took a deep breath. She wanted to believe she would never betray her world or its secrets. But she’d read enough stories to be unfortunately well-informed as to the likely outcome of the combination of questioning and torture.

The man at her side examined her with narrowed eyes upon seeing her sitting up a bit straighter.

She determined she would crash the ship and end both their lives.

Quickly, pilot. Don’t think about it
. She pointed the nose down hard.

Gaspar, at her side, did something unexpected. He laughed.

At the same moment, the ship corrected itself, preventing the attempted crash.

“I told you,” he said. “CCMS.”

Jessamyn would not give him the satisfaction of asking what “CCMS” stood for.

Her heart racing, she realized she would be facing Lucca after all. Which was a dreadful thing to contemplate and should have left her shaking in fear. But deep inside, a small part of her whispered,
Where there’s life, there’s hope
.

To what use could she put her life, then?

Jessamyn wondered if this man knew something of what the Chancellor
suspected
about Mars and the raiding crew. It was time for Jess to begin her career as a liar.

Renard, or whoever he was, had attempted to engage her in conversation several times. He’d cajoled and he’d threatened. Most recently, he’d tried sympathizing with her. It was time to pick his mind for answers.

He was vain; she’d determined that much. And an admirer of the Chancellor.

Jess interrupted the silence as they flew south along the coast of Europe.

“Is she a reasonable employer, the Chancellor?”

Not-Renard snapped to attention, murmuring, “It speaks,” in an undertone.

“I want to know what she can offer me that Mars cannot.”

The man smirked. “How good is the rebody program on Mars?”

Jess snorted in derision. “We live twice your pathetic lifespans.” Having said this, she realized her knee-jerk tendency to disparage all things Terran wasn’t going to serve her well. Perhaps she would turn out to be a very
bad
liar on Earth as opposed to on Mars.

The man angled his body so that he could look her directly in the eyes. “Why did you come here? It’s the first thing she’ll want to know. That, and, how far behind you is the Martian invasion?”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“Because old
Gaspar
won’t damage your flesh to get the truth out of you.”

“That’s your real name? Gaspar?”

“What’s in a name? I’ve worn many.” He smiled. “So why not tell me everything? In the end she’ll make you wish you had, you know.”

Jessamyn frowned. She wanted to say she was done talking. But Budapest was less than an hour distant, and this man could provide her with insights she lacked.

“So the Chancellor believes I’m the forerunner to an invasion?”

Gaspar looked at her sharply. “You won’t find us unprepared, girl. We’ve done the math. Even if you’ve been cloning and forcing all your women to give birth to multiple sets of twins, your army can’t number more than twenty-thousand. Thirty if you make the very old and the very young fight as well.”

This surprised Jessamyn. Someone
had
been thinking about this. So the Chancellor thought Jessamyn came as a harbinger of war.

Gaspar’s voice softened. “Of course, if you’re serious about changing loyalties and asking the Chancellor to harbor you, the rewards could be great. Very great.”

Jessamyn nodded as though considering what he said carefully.

“You asked what kind of employer she is? The kind who appreciates a show of strength. There’s a reason I chose the name of
Gaspar Bonaparte
.” His eyes narrowed. “You do know
Bonaparte
, you Martians? Great Emperor?”

Who died imprisoned, stripped of everything
, thought Jessamyn. Her only response was a curt nod.

“You really ought to consider telling me everything,” said Gaspar.

But Jessamyn was too busy considering what she ought to tell the Chancellor—how to play upon or against her fears of a Marsian invasion.

“Have it your own way,” said Gaspar at last. “The angrier she is with you, the less I’ll suffer her wrath.”

43

EQUIDIMA

Jessamyn was shoved onto her knees in a room that appeared to be a very luxurious
sleeproom
, of all things. She’d been blindfolded as soon as she’d landed the craft under Gaspar’s direction. After that, she’d been left in a drafty room for what felt like an hour. Her eyes adjusted with difficulty to the very bright lighting in the new room. Reflective surfaces—polished chrome, mirrors, glass—increased the sense of pervasive illumination.

At the focal point of all that light stood Lucca Brezhnaya. Jessamyn was relieved to find she would not have to wait untold days to learn her fate. The Chancellor struck Jess as someone who would enjoy making people wait.

“Ah, there you are,” said Lucca, as she might have said to a misplaced stylus or pair of reading lenses.

As Jessamyn’s eyes adjusted, she saw the Chancellor was being
sewn
into an elegant gown by a woman in a simple grey uniform. Jess couldn’t tell if the dress was shimmering in the light or creating luminosity on its own. It appeared to be made of flame, blood red. Jessamyn thought of Yucca all-ablaze and then tried not to think of Yucca. She especially tried not to think of Pavel. This was a time to be hard, not yielding. She imagined once more the fortress within which sheltered all that was soft or tender or vulnerable about her.

“I don’t have time to question you properly right now, as I have an investiture to attend,” continued the Chancellor. “And I really can’t risk soiling the lovely confection Zabrina’s created for me.”

The woman in grey shuddered as the Chancellor spoke her name.

“Careful with that needle, girl!” warned Lucca.