One Day on Mars

1:21 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time

"Well, Fireman's Apprentice King, just what the flyin' fuck were you thinking. If we were to pop out of hyperspace into a high-g situation, which by the goddamned way we are likely to with there being six, count them, six, motherfuckin' Seppy rust buckets just waiting out there for a fight, with the coolant fluid bladder structural integrity field on nominal what do you think would happen?" Hull Technician Third Class Joe Buckley berated the young enlisted man in front of him. HT3 Buckley had given the young ignorant fool the task of making battle ready the coolant flow systems, but fortunately the hull technician had taken the time to double check the apprentice's work.

"Well, uh—" Fireman's Apprentice King started, but was cut off quickly by Buckley.

"Shit, Jimmy, I don't wan't you to answer me," Buckley explained to the kid, not certain how he'd ever got accepted for supercarrier duty.

"Sorry, HT3."

"That was a rhetorical question. You've got to learn this drill or it could get this entire deck killed. That SIF . . . " He paused because Jimmy obviously didn't know what the SIF was. "The structural integrity field reinforces the bladder for the catapult field generator coolant tanks. The bladder can handle most tough jerks. But if we pop out of hyperspace into a shit storm we could be in for it if those SIFs ain't at the fuckin' max. The inertial dampening system for the entire boat takes a few seconds to kick in between hyperspace mode to normal space mode."

"Not sure what that means, HT3?" the fireman's apprentice said more in the way of a question.

"What it means, Jimmy, is that for the first few seconds we appear into normal space that bladder will get all the force of every move and bounce the Madira makes. And it was not designed to take any sort of pounding. The SIF protects it during the short transition period from hyperspace to normal space. Got it?" Buckley was pretty sure the kid didn't get it.

"Okay HT3, SIF at max when going to hyperspace. Got it." The young tech wannabe grinned at Buckley.

"Apprentice, I don't think you do get it. That is liquid metal in that bladder, you know how hot metal has to be until it becomes a liquid?" Buckley had to admit to himself that he didn't either, but at least he knew it was pretty goddamned hot. Too hot to let loose in the deck is what Buckley did know. It was hot enough to eat through the deck plating, which was way stronger than flesh and bone. That, Buckley did know.

"Sorry, HT3. Had no training on liquid metal," the fireman's apprentice answered.

"Well, the shit will burn you alive instantly and destroy this deck and the one below it. Now do you get it!"

"Uh." The look on Fireman's Apprentice King's face suggested to Buckley that he did finally get it or at least that this was some dangerous shit and that it had better be handled properly. "What do I need to do, HT3?" he said eager and a little frightened.

"It's okay, Jimmy. I already took care of it. But you know about it now." Buckley smiled at the apprentice approvingly. "We are about to get fuckin' hammered so why don't you strap in and start running the system flush diagnostics. We keep them running continuously during the conflict. You see anything that looks too cold, too hot, flowing too fast or too slow or not moving at all, or just out of place, you let me know."

Everything looks right, right, Mija?

Looks spot on, Joe. Uncle Timmy's countdown for the hyperdrive system shows about two minutes.

All right. Good girl. You keep me posted on anything. Joe shifted his weight around in his seat. There were several flatscreens in front of him and multiple layers of information coming at him DTM. The direct-to-mind interface was just the only way the brain could handle that much data so quickly. Multitasking the DTM with multiple flatscreens took all of Joe's mental capabilities and took the added intelligence of the AIC to help maintain control of all the tasks in the fluids and structures control deck of the supercarrier.

Of course.

"What, do you mean we have to divert the coolant throughout the ship ourselves? During combat?" Fireman's Apprentice King was a very raw apprentice. Buckley wondered if he had ever been so raw himself.

"No," Buckley laughed. "The AIs do most of that. We just have to help them keep an eye on things. Sometimes, we humans see things the AICs don't. The AIs would catch the SIFs not being turned up also, unless there were some other software protocol overriding it. You see, that is the thing with AIs. They are still software and their code gets conflicting rules sometimes. Only the older more wise ones or the really really smart ones are good at dealing with those types of conflicts," Buckley said knowingly. Hell, he had seen firsthand what happens when an AI didn't toggle some safety protocols because of conflicting code.

He remembered his roommate from tech school that used to have his original two arms and legs, but no longer did because of some damned seaman not double-checking the low-level AIs. Buckley hated to admit it, but hey, the truth was what it was and that truth was that he was an enlisted tech because he was not command and fighter-pilot smart and didn't have the willpower to stay in school long enough to get into OCS. The parallels between the human troops and the AICs were one-to-one. The smarter AIs got the cool jobs like the one Uncle Timmy had or those that were fighter pilot AICs. The dumber ones, well, they worked in the bowels of the ships. Buckley had long accepted the fact that he was the biological analogue of the shit detail AIC. But even those were pretty damned smart, most of the time. And at least his shit detail was on the flagship of the most powerful fleet in the history of mankind.

"HT3. Refuse-and-reclamation systems show purged and clear for lockdown. Hope nobody has to take a shit."

"Well, if they do, Jimmy, I think they'll be to busy getting shot at to worry about it."

"COB, any hiccups from the Army or the Marines?"

"They're good to go, sir," the chief of the boat Command Master Chief Doug Kurts replied, and sipped at his coffee. "Reminds me of that one time over the Belt when there wasn't any problems with them. You remember how that went, sir."

"Just make sure they're good, Command Master Chief."

"Aye sir. Good to go."

"Navigator, are hyperspace coordinates integrated through the fleet and ready for go?" Captain Jefferson sat in the command chair in the back of the bridge and buckled his safety restraints. Uncle Timmy DTMed the fleet status into his mind. He could see the full Martian contingent of the U.S. Navy in three-dimensional formation behind the Madira ready to roar through a brief thirty second leap of hyperspace into action.

"Aye, sir, Navigator Penny Swain replied without looking up from her screens. She had the same DTM show as the CO did but with vectors, trajectory optimization calculations, and multidimensional plots of each vessel in the fleet overlaid over it. The trajectories were continuously realigning themselves. "We are go."

"All right, XO, are we go on your end?"

"Aye sir!" the Marine colonel replied.

"Uncle Timmy, sound the all-hands."

General quarters. General quarters! All hands, all hands man your battle stations immediately! Prepare for short hyperspace jaunt in fifteen seconds. Expect multiple ground targets with incoming surface-to-air defenses and multiple carrier-class airborne targets. Prepare for evasive! Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Hyperspace, Uncle Timmy announced over the 1MC intercom as well as directly to all AIC implants on board.

The Sienna Madira along with the rest of the fleet lurched then phased out of normal space with a reversed cascading shower of violet flashes of light. The navigator continued to follow the hyperspace field lines and the trajectories of the fleet vessels. They were following along their respective multidimensional vector spaces accordingly and as far as she could tell would emerge into normal space just as the battle plan required.

"Everything looks right, Captain. Emerging from hyperspace in thirty seconds."

"Prepare for incoming. Air Boss is go for sorties," the CO ordered. Violet swirls of hyperspace spiraled rapidly around the fleet and the CO took a brief moment to stare out the stern viewscreen at the twirling, blinking, and flashing light show.

"DeathRay, sir!" Lieutenant Junior Grade Karen "Fish" Howser ran over to the CAG, who had just stepped out of the elevator into the hangar bay. Fish gave a quick salute to her squadron commander.

"What's up, Fish?" Jack paused from running over and over the battle plans and scenarios in his head just long enough to size up his new pilot. About one and three quarters meters tall, short pilot regulation-cut locks of black hair, attractive in an athletic sort of way, and young. Jack knew that she was a real young lady, not a resurfaced and rejuvenated woman, but a true twenty-six-year-old right out of training and fresh into the mix. And as her CAG he also knew it was her first combat duty.

"Sir. Just wanted to thank you for pulling me as your wingman," the lieutenant jg said.

"Just do your job and everything will be good." Jack repeated the words his first wingman told him so many years ago. "Fish. Just keep your eyes open."

"Yes, sir. You can count on me." It was obvious to Jack that the young junior officer was nervous as hell.

"You sure you up for this duty, Fish?"

"Yes, sir. Damn, sir, don't go getting all touchy-feely cat on me." Fish puffed out her chest and raised an eyebrow, to show her bravado.

"Good, you watch my back out there, all right?"

"You got it, sir. Let's go get 'em!"

General quarters. General quarters! All hands, all hands, man your battle stations immediately! Expect multiple space targets. Prepare for evasive! Emerging from hyperspace in nine, eight, seven . . . Uncle Timmy counted down over the 1MC intercom and again directly to all AIC implants.

The CO gripped his chair a little tighter.

"Good hunting, DeathRay!" The chief snapped a salute.

"Roger that!" Jack saluted back. The chief backed down the ladder, pulling several hardwire connectors and hoses from the fuselage of the plane.

Jack squirmed into the front seat, pulled the hardwire connection from the universal docking port of his Ares fighter, and plugged it into the thin little rugged composite box on the left side of his helmet that made a direct electrical connection to his AIC implant via skin contact sensors in his helmet. Jack's training and years of experience assured him that the odds of needing the direct connection were slim. Every now and then, though, the damned Seppy tech bastards got lucky with some electronic warfare algorithms or gadgets and could shut out the AIC-to-fighter wireless, but that was rare. The wireless connection was spread spectrum encrypted and almost unspoofable. Almost. The hardwire, on the other hand, required a physical intervention so it made a perfect backup. Jack had never needed it in the twelve years he'd been a Navy aviator.

"Hardwire UDP is connected and operational. Lieutenant Candis Three Zero Seven Two Four Niner Niner Niner Six ready for duty," the AIC announced over the open com channel. Then directly to Jack, Let's go get 'em, DeathRay!

Roger that, Candis!

Jack saluted the flight deck officer and brought the canopy down. The harness holding the fighter lowered and dropped it the last twenty centimeters to the deck with a slight squishing feel from the landing gear suspension. The drop always left him with a lump in his throat and butterflies in his stomach because it always meant that he was about to go screaming out the ass end of the supercarrier into a storm of raining and streaking hell flying from all directions. Jack swallowed the lump, calmed the butterflies, and followed the flight deck sequence. He moved his fighter first in line for takeoff.

"This is double zero, DeathRay," Jack called over the tac-net. "This is gonna get hairy, folks and I want everyone covering their wings and following the plan. Good hunting and good luck."

"Fighter zero zero call sign DeathRay, you are cleared for egress. Good hunting Lieutenant Commander Boland!" the control tower officer radioed. "Handing off to cat control."

"Roger that, tower." Jack went through his ritual. "Y'all just keep the beer cold and DeathRay will be back soon enough." Jack taxied to the "at bat" slot and braced himself.

"Fighter double zero, you are at bat and go for cat! Good hunting, DeathRay!" the catapult field AI announced. Jack throttled forward and switched to hover as the landing gear cycled and extracted. He bit down hard on his temporomandibular joint mouthpiece and eased the throttle just a little more forward so that the fighter slipped into the catapult field. He strained against his TMJ mouthpiece bite block and breathed shallow breaths through his gritting teeth.

"Roger that. Double zero has the cat! WHOOO! HOOO!" Jack screamed through the mouthpiece as the support tube for the bite block started pumping oxygen in his face and mouth. The catapult field flung him out of the rear lower launch deck and Jack was thrust hard into his seat at over nine Earth gravities accelerating the little snub nosed fighter to over three hundred kilometers per hour.

Without the inertial dampening controls of the fighter, DeathRay would have been crushed and his brain sloshed around inside his head to the point of fatal trauma. From zero to three hundred kilometers per hour in one tenth of a second is about eighty-five Earth gravities. The inertial dampening controls of the Ares fighter craft reduced the effect by generating a dampening field around the aircraft. This field served two purposes: 1) to add structural integrity to the fighter plane and 2) to reduce the effect of the g-forces to something that human pilots could withstand.

"Hot damn what a rush!" Jack breathed rapidly like a woman giving birth and spat out obscenities almost as proficiently. He grunted as the overwhelming g-forces from the catapult acceleration subsided.

Jack slowed his breathing a bit and scanned the sky, turning his head left and right slightly, and looked at the viewscreens displaying under and behind him. At the same time his AIC DTMed a full-scale three dimensional and immersive spherical view of the space around him. He could look in any direction and see space outside rather than the interior of the fighter. The view was partially transparent so that he could still monitor other instruments and controls inside the cockpit that were not virtual.

The sky was littered with explosions and flashes of light above and behind him; beneath him was the red planet. In his virtual mindview Jack could see the other planes from his squadron being flung from the Sienna Madira supercarrier. His young wingman pulled in beside the squadron leader on his right. Jack could see the inexperienced pilot scanning around her cockpit virtual view for bogies.

He could also see the main gun batteries of the Madira firing in rapid succession. Missile contrails spilled away from the mammoth warship through the thin upper Martian atmosphere. Some of them impacted the Seppy ship's shield plating and boiled off large chunks of the armor in brilliant orange and white flashes of debris clouds.

The DTM view showed that both the Demon Dawgs and the Utopian Saviors were dishing out a good bit of hell to the mix of Separatist Gnats and Stingers that were buzzing the fleet. The flagship, the U.S.S. George Washington, the U.S.S. Margaret Thatcher, the U.S.S. Boris Yeltsin, and the U.S.S. Nelson Mandela were pouring missiles and directed energy beams into the Separatist fleet. The Seppies were maneuvering slowly but returning fire. They were attempting to use the crossfire as cover and trying to mix into the Martian contingent of the American fleet to force the fleet ships to cease fire with their main guns for fear of friendly fire casualties.

The tactic was working fairly well for the Seppies. The strategy, on the other hand, at the moment seemed all on the side of the Americans because the original five ships that came out of hyperspace first were bait. The ten or so Seppy ships, which included the six carriers, had not counted on the eight supercarriers from Earth, three from Luna, and two from the outer planets as well as ten smaller yet still powerful support vehicles ready to drop out of hyperspace nearby. The Martian contingent of U.S. ships had taken the first beating but were now making a run for it to get out of the way of the fleet vehicles waiting to mop up.

Jack. We're clear of the engagement zone. Watching for SAMs and drop mecha. Lieutenant Colonel Warboys has already got his tanks on the ground, Candis alerted him. Also, all the Gods of War cleared the engagement zone safely and are forming up. Jack scanned the DTM and eyeballed outside the cockpit for his squad. All was going according to plan.

Great, Candis. Give me the evac cover trajectory, Jack thought. A trajectory vector traced across the virtual view in his mind and led to four blue dots on the surface. The dots were moving rapidly to the escarpment edge designated as the pickup point.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Seri "Vulcan" Cobbs, leader of the SH-102 Starhawk rescue vehicle squadron, made an announcement on the tac-net frequency that the mission two teams were using. "DeathRay, DeathRay, this is Vulcan. Angels squad, search and rescue, is on the drop and clear of the engagement zone. We are on your six and ready to take to ground on your call."

"Roger, that Vulcan. DeathRay copies you. Give us two shakes to reach cover and recon the evac. Warboys is closing in on the drop zone from the surface now. I've got a lock on the gyrenes afoot but have no track on the Killers. I repeat no track on the Killers."

"Copy that, DeathRay. Angels will hold back until green light. Good luck. Out."

Candis, where are the Killers?

IFF is turned off but they are covering the AEMs. I'm adding optical sensor data to the virtual. You should be able to see them from this range. Closing in on the drop point, now, the AIC answered.