The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (34 page)

I unfold myself from my formal kneeling posture,
stand and turn smoothly. I haven’t bothered to wear my helmet. I
suspect she’s watched me intently all this time, studying me from
the safety of distance and concealment while I breathe air too thin
to sustain a human being for more than a few minutes. I know she
knows what it’s like to try.

She’s still wearing her signature mask and eye
pieces, but I don’t know if this is still a constant necessity or
just because we’re outside. She also wears her usual black robes,
her sword, her clawed hands hidden in her generous sleeves. But her
long hair is down, blowing in the wind.

She stands flanked by six of her shinobi, in a
semi-circle around me at what would usually be a safe distance, or
at least far enough away to react defensively, yet still have an
old-fashioned conversation. Her guards carry swords and PDWs. She
has to realize this is only for show.

“Colonel Ram will do fine, Lady Sakura. You look
well.”

“For a fugitive,” she admits wryly. “Necessary
theatre.”

Her own brother officially denied her to UNMAC,
insisted that she alone was responsible for their attempts to
acquire ETE tech, as well as the “experiments” we became aware of
when her “test subjects” tried to take on Brimstone and failed at
the deserted Zodangan stronghold.

“And turning your people over to UNMAC for processing
and relocation?” I get to what Anton flashed me yesterday:

On the eve of General Richards arrival, the Shinkyo
called out for “relief”, Daimyo Hatsumi agreeing to all terms.
There were three hundred and two colonists still living in the
Shinkyo Colony site, “left behind” after the ETE responded to
Shinkyo attempts to attack their Stations and steal their
technology (even if it meant taking the ETE as living samples, or
at least amputated parts of them), after the shinobi force had been
driven to hidden fallback positions in the slopes of the Dragon’s
Tail range. Hatsumi asked UNMAC to take these people in, claimed
they were all that was left of his colony, opened the site to
UNCORT inspection to prove they were no longer engaging in any kind
of nanotech manufacturing (and certainly not any hybridizing
experiments with what they had stolen from the ETE—that was a
“rogue element”, overseen by the “traitorous” Sakura, who
supposedly ran with a few loyalists to avoid paying for her
“crimes”).

“We were simply copying your brilliant strategy with
the Industry PK,” she praises like a circling predator. “It is a
poor adversary who falls for the same ploy twice.”

“You assume that UNMAC command doesn’t suspect your
gesture.”

“I’m sure your former survivor-allies do, but their
new commanders are blinded and deafened by their own egos, egos
easily inflated by victories they can play up to the rest of
cowering humanity back on Earth.”

I rein in my simmering anger. Yes, she (because her
brother is probably just her figurehead) used my strategy, taking
advantage of Earthside’s dire need for symbolic successes. But I’m
sure her motive is less about getting her vulnerable people out of
harm’s way, or even intelligence gathering, than it is about
getting her shinobi—certainly hidden among her civilians—close
enough for mayhem on command.

I can’t fault her for doing so. I can’t even feel
sympathy for Earthside for what they’ve potentially set themselves
up for. But she’s putting my friends—my former people still on the
ground—directly in that crossfire.

(I remember what happened when I was stupid enough to
try to trap four of her shinobi inside the Melas Two bunker,
confident that I had the advantage of numbers and weapons. I can’t
even imagine what a dozen, or a hundred, could do in such proximity
to UNMAC’s primary foothold on this planet.)

“You know your people will be closely watched,
contained,” I praise her coolly. “You know they may never gain
enough trust for access to critical systems. Perhaps they might get
a shot at key personnel, depending on their pride. But you won’t
show your hand just for some impulsive attack. You have a long game
in mind. As you always do.”

“You are still you, Colonel Ram,” she returns my
compliments, “at least in all the important ways.”

I give her a flash of a grin.

“And we can have this conversation because you know
Earthside Command considers me an enemy, not be trusted.”

“With good reason,” she condemns gently. “Besides
their fear of what you are, what else are you keeping from them
that they should be afraid of? Your friend who fancies himself a
devil? The flame-haired demon that protects Tranquility?” she hints
at the extent of her intel. “More? Can you make warriors and war
machines like Chang? Convert human flesh into weapon? Or will you
consume it to make yourself stronger, whenever you have need?”

Apparently I need to talk to Two Gun and Murphy about
our perimeter security. If the Shinkyo offer this information to
UNMAC, even without proof, Earthside will believe worse. And
Tranquility will become a priority target.

“Is there some bargain you’re here to make?” I prod
her.

“You came to us. What do
you
want?” she
seduces like ice.

“To warn you that you’re on the wrong path. This can
only end badly for your people.”

“Then help us.”

She steps forward. Within arm’s reach. Fearless. Even
as I look at her like she’s an amusing insect.

“You have made others like you, from you. So you
already know what I want.”

I grin again. She remains stoic, but then I can’t see
her eyes, her expression; only her body language, all
discipline.

“A deal with the devil?” I taunt her. “You don’t
understand the cost of the bargain. The process, assuming I
can
replicate it at will, will replace you with someone
else. You will no longer be Hatsumi Sakura. You will no longer be
Shinkyo. Just your meat. I’m told the process is unimaginably
excruciating for a living person. Not the pain. The consuming of
your mind. Whatever strength of will you think you have… You could
no more resist it than you could resist a bullet to the brain.”

She does an impressive job of appearing to digest the
news like she expected it, prepared for it. Even her masked
bodyguards don’t visibly react to the idea that I might impulsively
overwrite their mistress into an unstoppable enemy.

“There must be a way,” she tries to insist. “To
recode the technology, preserve the host, like Chang has with his
agents.”

“I’m not Chang. And I’ve already erased one life I
held dear,” I tell her honestly.

“You do not refuse to try because you care for me,”
she discounts, almost sounding hurt, but it’s all part of her
game.

“But I do respect you, despite some of our prior
difficulties.”

“Polite as always,” she says like she’s subtly
insulting me. “Even though you would leave us defenseless against
Chang.”

“I doubt I would ever use the word ‘defenseless’ to
describe any Shinkyo.”

She acknowledges my left-handed compliment with a
little nod.

“Our options are limited,” she admits after a pause.
“Both Chang and Earthside will be certain that our ‘refugees’ are
not the entirety of our population, and they will seek us out, even
if they do believe what remains is only a small radicalized element
on the run. Convincing the Earth commanders that we were
cooperating, even grateful for rescue, did allow us to place agents
close enough to the UN operations command to keep us apprised of
their movements. But we were not able to do the same with
Chang.”

“You tried?” I’m almost surprised.

“The price of acceptance into his Joint Independence
Force is full disclosure: the locations of all of our resources and
facilities. When our agents withheld that information, they were
tortured and executed.”

“And simple deception didn’t work?” I’m wondering how
Chang suddenly got smart enough to see deception past his own
ambition. (It’s probably my fault.)

“He has an ally. A golden-haired beauty. She can read
the intent of both men and women, detect lies, influence them to
reveal themselves.”

Astarte. Which means she’s playing her role even at
the cost of human lives, or she’s turned. Or maybe she just sees
the Shinkyo as another dangerous enemy, so getting them killed is
no cost at all. I try to imagine how what we’ve become—or what this
world has become—has changed her.

“Our only defense against Chang is hiding under
mountains,” she distills her distress. “And that is only temporary.
His railgun can burst those mountains. All he needs is time and no
other resistance, and he will blast us from our holes, scatter us
and hunt us down. Then he will pursue the other races,
exterminating them in turn if they do not truly choose loyalty. We
only ask for tools to better fight this monster, and, in turn,
protect the other peoples of Mars from him.”

“And who protects them from you?”

“You do, if you join with us,” she doesn’t hesitate,
probably having rehearsed this sale for many days.

“If you become a greater threat than a ‘small
radicalized element on the run,’ Earthside will come after you as
lethally as Chang. More so, since they’ll eventually control
orbit.”

“As they will surely come after you, as soon as they
can,” she turns it. “Hiding in a garden full of innocent primitives
will not stop their bombs if they are afraid enough. You know this.
So will you run, hide, live like we are? Forever? How long until
they control the whole planet? Ten years? Twenty? A lifetime for
me, but an instant for you.”

“Filling a planet with monsters won’t encourage Earth
to go away,” I insist. “Just the opposite, in fact.”

“But you also know it is always better to negotiate
from a position of superior strength.”

“It is always
best
to negotiate when both
parties can benefit from the agreement.”

This does make her hesitate. She’s been thinking in
terms of conflict for too long, likely all her life. Raised to be a
warrior, a warlord, and nothing else.

“You have rifles trained on me,” I tell her what else
I know. “Nine hundred meters out. New experiments. Shall we test
your negotiating position?”

She doesn’t respond, but I can feel her guards tense,
coil. I know she’s wired to signal her snipers to fire, but she
doesn’t. She does nothing. Too bad I’ve grown impatient. And I want
to know what they’ve been working on.

They’ve taken precautions to protect their coms from
hacks, of course, but it’s a simple enough matter to send a more
basic kind of signal. I draw my sword in less than the blink of an
eye, hold it low off to my right side, perfectly still.

Impressively, Sakura doesn’t so much as flinch. I’m
sure she knows I could have cut her in half in that eye blink. But
her guards react. Their PDWs lock on me. I take the moment of
tension to morph my blade into something more appropriate for the
occasion.

The last time I faced Hatsumi’s personal guard, I
actually managed to almost hold my own with a blade (and a little
help from Paul), but I still wound up needing to be carried away
and stitched back together (in some very embarrassing places). And
I realize Sakura is intently studying everything I do, probably
recording it for her research team, but I can’t resist the
opportunity for a constructive lesson.

I toss my sword straight to my left hand, and in the
time it takes to make the journey I draw my pistol and pop a round
into each one of their gun barrels, bursting their weapons. Only
two of them managed to fire back, but couldn’t hope to track my
movement.

The snipers take their cue, but even at almost a
thousand meters per second, I have plenty of time to shift out of
the path of their bullets. What surprises me is that the bullets
curve to try to pursue me, only I dodged when they were too close
to correct enough. The bullets hit the regolith roughly between the
Shinobi, but then they burrow in before they explode—some kind of
multi-stage projectile. I expect the casings are organic to defeat
ETE disintegration fields.

More rounds come in, but this time I’m better
prepared. I gauge my dodge like a dancer, so that when the next
bullet curves after me, I send it at one of the shinobi (knowing
the angle will send it at his feet—I’m still trying to avoid idle
murder). The burrowing delay gives the guard just enough time to
avoid losing some toes or worse when it blows. I cut the next one
even closer, try to catch it in flight, but it proves too slippery,
so I only manage to swat it, making another shinobi jump.

Sakura barks a hold-fire order into her channel, then
steps back smoothly, a signal to her close guard. They draw swords
and charge in well-practiced order, perfectly choreographed. They
have to know that if I can dodge a bullet, even their fastest
swordsmen are a slow waltz. (I wonder how they would have done
against Bug. I actually have time to think of that before they
cross the gap. They’re probably wondering why I look like I’m
daydreaming in the middle of a brawl.)

Not wanting to bisect bodies for the sake of an idle
demonstration, my nanoblade has become what the classical Chinese
would call a “hard whip”, or a “steel ruler”: a square edged heavy
rod favored by guards and sergeants-at-arms, an implement of
punishment. Of course, the Chinese idea of “punishment” during that
era went far beyond a flogging…

In a flash of metal and limbs, I shatter two swords
and send three more flying out of gloved hands; break two legs,
three arms and an unknown number of ribs (and one unfortunate
tailbone). In the barest few seconds, Sakura’s guards are in no
condition to fight (though I have to break another hand when one
stubborn soul tries to reach for a grenade). But all are alive, and
probably reparable, though I’m sure they’d rather I
had
used
a live blade than humiliate them with a blunted sword. (And I know
they may still end themselves, once they’re capable of holding a
blade again, unless their lady forbids the ritual.)