Martha relaxed into the pilot’s chair, her term on the punishment planet complete. A message flashed on her HUD, “Thank you for your service.”
She hit the eject button.
Ten years earlier, a signal from Rob, “Thank you for your service” meant “Get out of there”. His warning never came. The bots got her, and her wonder turned to blame.
Why contact her now? It had to be him.
She looked back at the ship, then she got her answer as it exploded into fragments. The shock wave hit: her pod shook but survived, coming to rest two-thirds of the way up Pavonis Mons.
“Suit,” she commanded, “status.”
“Nominal,” the suit responded, “full integrity, forty hours of air and water.”
Nearly two days, she thought, the land-truck would take about thirty hours. She connected comms to the Penal Colony.
“Hello Mars PC, this is Martha,” she broadcast. “I’m in a pod on Pavonis Mons. Haul me in, will ya?”
“We noticed you escaped the fireworks,” Governor Brad Coris’s familiar voice replied.
“When does the recovery truck get here?”
“Ah yes. We’re not sure we have the resources for a recovery.”
“Oh c’mon, Brad. You have a dozen trucks.”
“They’re all detailed to the explosion.”
“Well un-detail them.”
“Sorry Martha. Priorities.”
“Why?”
“Loose ends. WorldGov thinks you’re still a threat.”
The line went dead, but then she heard a voice she never thought she’d hear again.
“Martha,” said Rob, “what’s your sit-rep?”
“ROB? It WAS you who warned me. Where are you?”
“Mars orbiter. They got me before they took you. I knew you were there, but they don’t allow comms.”
“So how…?”
“We’ve taken the station. We’re into the network. Locked them out.”
“How did you know they were going to blow my ride?”
“We’re into the colony’s network. Can’t do much. We need a jockey.”
“Do you know one?”
“I know the best. Can you jack-in?”
Reaching for the comms panel contacts, she felt for the two ports at the back of her neck.
“I’m in.”
“Routing you to the admin block.”
Looking around at icons of terminals and servers in her mind’s eye, she saw what she needed: the emergency systems. Locking all the doors to the admin block, she turned her attention to Brad’s workstation and switched it on.
“Hello Brad.”
“Martha! How did you get in here?”
“Friends in high places,” she said, pointing at the sky.
“This won’t help,” Brad said, trying the locked door.
“You’re in lockdown, so that won’t help you either.”
“I can send a truck out to get you.”
“Yeah, and I lose control of the network and get a bullet for my trouble.”
“What then?”
“Just one thing,” she replied. She looked him squarely in the eyes, “I’d like to thank you for your service.”
With that, she flushed the air from the block and watched as Brad fell to the floor, his eyes bulging.
“It’s done, Rob,” she said. “Come and get me.”
But all she heard was static.
