Defying Mars (Saving Mars Series-2) (5 page)

Mei Lo’s voice sounded like home—like yellow skies and reddish dirt and the scent of peroxide. In the place of the anger she’d been feeling toward the Secretary, Jess felt a rush of gratitude that Mei Lo had given her the opportunity to serve as a Mars Raider, bringing food to last the next generation and beyond.

“We weren’t expecting this large a turnout,” said Mei Lo.

Jess felt an odd flutter in her belly. She didn’t need a large welcoming party. She didn’t need anyone but her own parents. Her mom’s arms around her, her dad’s whisper that he knew she’d done everything she could—these were the things Jess craved. Not some big party. She vowed to sneak away as soon as possible after touchdown.

Bringing the ship in a sweep along the Valles Marineris, Jessamyn marveled with Earth-attuned eyes at the deep chasm. The
Galleon
seemed to lean forward, to feel the call of the world that had launched her.

“That’s my girl,” said Jess softly. “Almost home.”

The moment of landing, shuddering and noisy, felt to Jessamyn like an embrace, a longed-for rest, a smile upon the face of a friend.

She noticed a thrill running along her forearms as she hailed ground control.

“Mars Colonial Command, this is First Officer Jessamyn Jaarda. We request permission to disembark.”

There was no immediate answer on the comm, which Jess found odd. She’d begun unclipping herself from her harness when she heard what at first reminded her of the bleating of Wallace’s goats, but within seconds Jess recognized it as the clamoring of hundreds of voices.

She turned to Crusty, tapping her helmet with a resigned expression upon her face. “You hearing what I’m hearing?”

“Reckon they’re glad to see us,” said Crusty, shrugging off the last of his own harness.

Jessamyn stood and experienced a momentary disorientation—her body had reassumed its
Mars
weight. She felt as if she were literally floating.

“Hmmph,” grunted Crusty, responding to his body’s lack of weight as he stood. “Guess we could’ve stood a few more adjustments to ship’s gravity.”

Jess giggled to see the bounce in Crusty’s step. “You’re walking like a little child.”

“You were young a whole lot more recently than I was, kid,” replied the mechanic.

The buoyancy of her stride matched perfectly the buzzing sort of anticipation she felt thinking of her parents waiting for her just outside.
Holy Ares,
she’d missed them.

Making no attempt to regulate her own bouncing stride, Jess followed Crusty down into the bowels of the ship, from which they emerged onto the Marsian plain minutes later. Jess’s first thought was how dimly lit her world appeared in comparison to Earth. Her second was that she had underestimated the number of people who had been cheering over the comm. It looked to her as if half of New Houston had suited up for the occasion—several thousand helmeted heads were raised to greet the returning Mars Raiders.

The noise outside thundered and Jess had to adjust the volume on her helmet receiver. Forcing herself to hold her gloved hands down at her sides, Jess resisted a momentary urge to tear off her helmet and run in the opposite direction. Like all Mars-children, she’d read about crazy settlers who had done just that early in Mars’s colonization. She couldn’t remember what got them first—the lack of human-friendly air pressure or the lack of breathable air. Shuddering, she made herself stand still and smile at the gathered crowd.

Just look for Mom and Dad
, she told herself.

Many of the gathered throng had placed three blue marks upon their helmets, just above their eyes. Jess only had a moment to ask herself what it might signify before she noticed Mei Lo’s diminutive form before her. The Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial held out a glove-protected hand, and Jess reached to grasp it in a clumsy handshake. A spattering of flashes marked the moment and Jess heard Crusty’s grunt of annoyance—the two were still connected by ship’s comm. An interruptive beep-beep informed her of the Secretary’s incoming voice over her comm.

“Welcome home, Pilot Jaarda, Payload Specialist Crustegard,” said Mars’s leader.

“It’s good to be back, Madam Secretary,” replied Crusty.

Jessamyn gave a moment’s attention to the Secretary, but then returned to her search for her parents. They had to be here. Why hadn’t they been allowed up front where she could find them?

“Be nice if the crowd could keep it down already,” mumbled Crusty. “They’re givin’ me a headache the size of Olympus Mons.”

Jess smiled at her cranky crewmate’s remark, causing another series of flashes.

“Ain’t gonna get your face with all that light bouncing off of your helmet,” Crusty grunted. “Guess we’d best get used to it, though.”

A tall woman approached the Secretary, Jess, and Crusty and began angling the three into posed stances.

“Crusty and Jessamyn,” said Mei Lo, “I’d like you to meet my new events coordinator, Nessa Niedermaier.”

Another helmet beep-beep. “If I could just have the two of you stand to either side of the Secretary?” asked the events coordinator.

And so, rather than the homecoming Jessamyn had imagined where she rushed into the arms of her mom and dad, she found herself being pushed, pulled, and tugged into half-an-hour’s worth of staged photographs, punctuated by Crusty’s salient grousing.

During this time, Mei Lo spoke a few brief words to the crowd in praise of the raiders and then encouraged everyone to return home, as the crew of the
Galleon
would be entering Mars Colonial Command for debriefing and a health check.

“And as much as I’d love to invite all of you inside,” said Mei Lo, “I’m afraid the building would explode. We’ll have announcements for the week’s festivities on the evening news brief.”

Jessamyn, still craning her head for any sign of her parents, heard the Secretary’s quiet sigh as she switched to communicate to the raiders in private. “I think that went well. We certainly didn’t anticipate this kind of turnout, though. A harbinger for the days to come, I suppose. If you’ll both follow me.”

“Madam Secretary,” said Jessamyn, “I was hoping to—that is, um …” She felt her face coloring. How did a Mars Raider tell the planet’s CEO that she just wanted a minute with her mom and dad? “Do you know where I can find my parents?”

Mei Lo’s brow creased, but the expression was replaced almost instantly by a strained smile. “They chose to, ah, watch your arrival from home.”

“Oh,” said Jess. Her voice sounded hollow in her helmet. She felt a tug in the space where her heart lay, a skip of its beat, a moment of
lost
as if she were a child whose parents had forgotten to pick her up after school. “Okay.”

Crusty and the others had removed their helmets, and Jess realized they’d passed through the building airlock without her having noticed. Hastily, she unlatched her own helmet and took a deep breath.

Home at last,
she told herself.

Her nose twitched. The air didn’t smell right. It smelled … stale. And too dry. And breathing felt … odd, as well. Inhaling
itched
, somehow. It made her feel strangely protective of her lungs, too aware of each arid breath.

Breathing wasn’t something you should have to
think
about.

“
Get over it, Jaarda,
” she murmured to herself. Of course things smelled different here than they had aboard the ship. Ship air was notoriously poor after a couple of weeks.
This
air was good for her, was normal.
Get over it
.

During the minutes walking through MCC to the briefing room, Nessa Niedermaier kept up a steady stream of talking, addressed to Crusty and Jess. Fortunately, she seemed to require no response.

“We’ll be taking formal portraits following the briefing with the Mars Colonial Board of Directors. Then you’ll have a ten-minute rations break followed by a brief appearance on the evening news. Tomorrow’s schedule has already been sent to your homes, but I’ll just mention the highlights …”

Jessamyn found herself unable to entirely ignore Nessa’s chatter. The events coordinator had a full five days of activities planned for them, including their appearance at a memorial to honor the lost crew members, multiple photo sessions at locations around the planet, and concluding with a special worldwide festival day.

Jess felt a tightening in her chest. She hadn’t considered the possibility that her time would not be her own during the following week. She had plans. Plans that definitely didn’t involve flying around the world posing for hero-portraits.
One thing at a time
, she told herself.

Mars Colonial Command Headquarters, which had previously seemed a sprawling complex, now struck Jessamyn as squat and small.
And drab
, she added to herself, remembering the statuary and baskets of flowers which had adorned the edifices of Budapest. She shook her head to clear the unwelcome judgments.
This is home
, she told herself as she slipped into the War Room.

Inside, Crusty and Jessamyn found themselves subjected to a standing ovation which the gruff mechanic put an end to with a rather loud, “That’s enough of that. We’re just a couple of tired astronauts.”

A nervous titter scuttled about the room and Jess realized Crusty was right. She felt more tired than she could remember feeling for a long time. And hungry. And very, very thirsty. “Any chance of a wet ration?” she murmured to the Secretary General.

“Of course,” replied Mei Lo.

Jess didn’t like the strained look still present in the Secretary’s smile, but her thoughts were soon elsewhere. During the mission debriefing, Jess and Crusty were questioned, while being simultaneously examined by physicians whose obsequious attentions included providing
three
wet rations apiece to the raiders as well as a series of injections.

Jessamyn tried to answer the questions truthfully. Yes, she had been the one who indicated to her captain that Ethan’s mental health was sufficient for the task before him—the task which had ended in the capture of three raiders. No, once her brother had been captured, she had not been able to communicate with him prior to his being rendered unconscious. No, she had no way of knowing if the captain was alive or dead. She did not try to hide the fact that she had attempted to rescue her brother. And she admitted to having been the inadvertent cause of Terran casualties as she’d fled Budapest on her desperate run back to the
Galleon
.

She felt, however, a certain reluctance to go into the details of her last half-hour upon Terran soil. Even Crusty knew only some of what had transpired inside Wallace’s cottage—how the Terran Chancellor had believed Jess to be a terrorist, how Jess had escaped with the assistance of Pavel and Brian Wallace.

The debriefing brought sharp emotions to the surface of Jessamyn’s thoughts once more. Her loss of family and friends seemed fresh again, a raw and scraping pain as if she’d inhaled Mars-sand. A look at Crusty’s downcast eyes and tight-drawn brows told her he shared her feelings. She was certain Crusty felt as relieved as she did when the debriefing was declared at an end.

But she was surprised and touched when Crusty turned to the Secretary, saying, “We ain’t doing no more pictures tonight. The kid needs to see her mom and dad. Tell the news folks they can use what they already got.”

Mei Lo nodded and held a hand up to silence Nessa’s spluttering response. “That will be all for today, Nessa,” the Secretary said in a firm voice. “Crusty, I believe your father is eagerly awaiting a visit,” she added, smiling.

“I’m sure he is,” muttered Crusty. “But first I’d like to know who you had in mind for giving the
Galleon
a thorough look-over.”

The Secretary smiled, and Jess was relieved to see it was a genuine smile this time.

“I take it you’d like the position?” asked Mei Lo, conspiratorially. “They’ve got your name down for a promotion to a desk job.”

Crusty laughter, low and gruff, was all the answer the Secretary needed.

“I’ll inform MCC that I’m appointing you to the
Galleon
instead,” she said. “Jessamyn, if I might have a word?”

Jess reached out a hand to grasp Crusty’s forearm before he left. Her face, turned from the Secretary, shot Crusty a wide-eyed farewell.

He reached his large arms around her narrow shoulders and whispered into Jessamyn’s ear. “Don’t you fret, kid. Things’ll be back to normal in no time.”

But Jess felt very, very alone as she watched her last remaining crewmate disappear around a corner. She was home, and she loved her planet, but it no longer felt the same to her. What if her parents had stayed away because they didn’t want to see her? Didn’t want the reminder of the loss of their son? She felt suddenly afraid to go home.

“You held a few things back in there,” said Mei Lo in a soft voice, bringing Jessamyn back to the present.

Jess nodded, her eyes meeting those of the Secretary without flinching.

“I want you to consider carefully the possible consequences of either telling me more or keeping it from me,” said Mei Lo. “Right now, you need to get home, see your family, and get some sleep. Tomorrow, you and I have things to discuss. Agreed?”

Jessamyn nodded.

“I’ll send my driver for you at 09:00.”

Jess flushed. “That won’t be necessary.”

The Secretary smiled. “I’m afraid it will be. You’re a planetary treasure now, Jessamyn. There’s a driver expecting you at the front desk as we speak. Your life will be more complex now, but I’m confident you’ll rise to the occasion.” Mei Lo gave Jess a brief hug and turned down the hall, leaving Jessamyn nothing to do but find the chauffeur appointed for her conveyance.

On the short drive home, Jess noticed details she hadn’t paid any attention to since she was a child. She was struck by the soft glow of New Houston, at how she could squint her eyes ‘til they were nearly shut and make the city lights flicker, candle-like. Mars’s sky seemed to her by night a thing immensely comforting, a dark blanket draped over her form like someone tucking her into bed for the night. Home-yearnings brought a sharp prickling to her eyes. She would not think of tomorrow or the day after. She would welcome only this present moment, this homecoming.