Martian Dictator Read online

  Recently I had been looking at the original plans for the colonization of Mars, at first more out of curiosity than anything else, then later with a growing interest. The plans had been scrapped after the funding ran out, and all the precious equipment they had managed to ship over had been left to freeze on the surface. Also, the colonists would have developed cancer. All of them. The ship that would carry them out there needed proper shielding to prevent it, and with conventional means that would mean an unacceptable amount of weight in the form of water and lead. Recent breakthroughs in magnetic shielding, however, made it theoretically possible to construct a shield to protect the would-be colonists from the hardship of radiation. With a little targeted headhunting of key personnel by way of offering them ten times their current salary, I had managed to get my hands on the patents for the PPMS device—Point to Point Magnetic Shielding. Within four months I could have a working prototype of the device and a crew ready to install it on an appropriate vessel. All I lacked were volunteers for a lifetime on Mars, access to the equipment already on the surface, and a spaceship. Details in the grander scheme of things, but inconveniences nonetheless.

  And the next thing I knew, I got a phone call from Dr. Roger Wells, asking me very nicely if I would sacrifice a few of my precious minutes and listen to a proposal that “I could not for the life of me afford to miss out on.” I could have kissed the man. If he had not picked up the phone and called me, I would have called him.

  I let him prattle on about the economic viability of having full production facilities in the neighborhood of the asteroid belt, how you could use the low gravity of the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, to reduce the cost of launching interplanetary expeditions and so on and so forth. Nothing he said was news to me. I already had plans laid up for production facilities on the surfaces of both Mars and Phobos, and I had a team set up for figuring out how to best use the resources of the asteroid belt. Space spelunking. If nothing else, I would do it just for the pleasure of pronouncing it.

  The scientist was clearly getting to the end of his sales pitch, and my lack of enthusiasm was getting to him. Beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead, and he finally stuttered to a halt, midsentence.

  I slowly skewered the final piece of meat on my plate, and watched as the blood formed red images.

  “I’ll give it some thought.” The meat was truly excellent.

  The meeting wound up, and Roger rose to leave. I watched him weave his way around waiters and guests, managing to hit the path of most resistance at every instance. Utterly useless in this environment. But there was something there, no doubt about it. A certain persistence, a stubbornness, and a will to sacrifice everything to attain his one goal: Mars. It almost shocked me when I realized that the person he reminded me of in his stubbornness was myself.

  I leaned back and sipped the glass of red wine that never seemed to drain, courtesy of the invisible waiters. So, Mars was on. So far it had been an investment opportunity more than an actual project, but the approach by one of the remaining leaders of the colonization endeavor was giving me a golden opportunity to just hijack all the work that had been laid down so far.

  With this meeting, I had secured the equipment, the colonists, and most of the expertise needed to establish a permanent colony. I already had a team working on the plans for a spaceship, and I had my eyes on several other experts in their respective fields that would be nice to have aboard.

  Now, I needed a captain.

  2. The Captain

  Captain Andrew Reinholts, retired, took one look at the schematics and snorted in disgust. “You want me to fly that row of bowling balls through 150 million miles of open space with nothing but fairy dust as shielding and a bunch of amateurs to back me up? I’m sorry that you wasted your time coming here, and good luck with your little project.” He downed his drink with a practiced toss of his hand, pushed his chair away from the table, and stood up.

  He swallowed the bitterness along with the alcohol as he reached behind him for his jacket. He should have known better. At his age, and with his history, he should have known that any job offer that came his way would include either a certain amount of violence or a high degree of insanity. Or both, as his previous few jobs could testify to. What was in front of him was a death sentence, and he would have nothing to do with it, nor would he humor the slick man sitting in front of him by continuing the charade. He was done with flying, and after the debacle of his last flight he was surprised that anybody would even consider hiring him. Of course, with a mission such as this, no sane pilot would ever accept.

  “Please, captain, don’t leave just yet. Let me walk you through this real quick, give you the broad strokes and another drink. When I’m done, you can walk out of here without even saying goodbye.” The captain eyed the man in front of him, trying to force his feet to move towards the door of the bar. But the bottle the Billionaire had brought glinted golden in the few rays of sun that made it through the dust on the tired windows, and his hands seemed to move of their own accord as they reached out with his glass for a refill. Whisky. The good stuff—Convalmore, if his eyes didn’t betray him, probably older than himself. Liquor that he had not tasted in a long while, not since he had a job, a life, and a future that held more than cheap beer and the occasional knife fight.

  “All right, fill it up and fill me in.” The gold flowed from the bottle, and the music of the whisky hitting the glass played a tune he could not resist.

  ◆◆◆

  I had him. Or rather, the whisky had him. I could see the hunger in his eyes as I poured him a second drink, and it didn’t take a genius to tell that a third would follow closely. But even though the dam had been breached, I had to be careful with my approach. I wanted this man on my team, and I wanted him sober enough to be at least half the man he had been when he left the Air Force. Captain Reinholts at half capacity was still twice as good as any other pilot on the force. And twice as dangerous.

  If my sources had it right, he had killed at least three men in honest knife fights, wounded three times that many, and rumor had it that he was a good man to recruit if you wanted something done that included a little show of force. He did not fly, though, not any more. His last flight had ended with himself ejecting from his trans-atmospheric glider, leaving his copilot and fifteen military passengers on board to fall twenty-thousand feet to their deaths. The black box was never recovered, and his own testimony that his starboard wing had been hit by a micrometeoroid was never corroborated by any findings. His word was further tainted when a routine check showed a high probability that he had been intoxicated when he ejected. He had lost his job, his pension and part of his sanity. He was perfect.

  The second drink went down about as fast as the first one. I poured another, my hand never having left the bottle. I settled back and took in the surroundings. The bar was a classic midwestern shithole with dirty windows, dirty glasses, dirty floors and dirty customers. The kind of place where you have to tread lightly or risk leaving with less blood in your body than when you entered. I’d gotten the evil eye from a couple of the regulars as I walked in, but as I approached the table where the captain was nursing a beer they averted their eyes and let me pass. Either they weren’t ready to tangle with a man of Reinholts’s caliber, or they were just waiting to see how my meeting with him would shake out before they descended on me.

  I did not fit in, not by a long shot. There wasn’t even any point in trying to dress to the occasion; no matter what I wore I would stick out like a sore thumb. It was written in the way I moved, the way I met their eyes and how I stalked through the interior. I was competition, and I was a different kind of predator. I was a solitary hunter, and they moved in packs. I had willingly crossed the border to their domain, and I would not be leaving without being challenged.

  But for now, the hyenas let me be.

  ◆◆◆

  Captain Reinholts knew how this would go down. Ben and his crew of miscreants had been itchin
g for a fight for a couple of days now, and it was only due to his reputation that they had not tried to take it out on him yet. That, and the ten-inch bowie he always carried at his hip. After his fourth drink the shakes settled down, and the familiar warmth spread through his body. His mind was razor sharp, and his movements were measured and careful as only the true alcoholic can manage.

  “So, you are seriously going to Mars.” He twirled the glass around and watched as the liquid inside gained momentum and started to spin.

  “Yes.” The Billionaire was on his second drink, slowly taking small sips and seemingly enjoying the liquor in a way he himself was incapable of these days. Somehow it made him angry. Angry and jealous. This man would not be walking out of here unchallenged. Be it the bunch of thugs now gathered at the tables by the door or by himself. He had caught a glimpse of steel in a shoulder scabbard as the man had pulled out his chair, and if you walked with a blade these days you were free game.

  The bad days of the energy crisis before the Icarus went online had left some serious impressions on society, and at the top of the list was how knife fighting had turned into the preferred method of settling disputes. After the bill of ’24 outlawing handguns and assault weapons, the police, with the aid of the National Guard, had scoured the country for guns. Not only was it illegal to own, carry, or trade guns or ammunition, the punishments were so severe that the streets had turned to knives.

  It soon became a matter of pride to be a master knife fighter, and when the economy collapsed and the public were on the brink of revolting, the knife became a release valve for many a quarrel. The police turned a blind eye since the potential for collateral damage while using a knife was limited, and duels fought with a knife were now, unofficially, a part of everyday life. It had even turned into a sport, with polymer-carbon layers laced with red paint coating the knife edge to protect the contestants from the worst injuries.

  “As I said, good luck with that. You’re going to need it where you’re going. I had my share of flights up to the International Space Station, and you do not have any leeway for errors up there. These are amateurs you’re bringing along. They might be idealists and full of fun facts about Mars, but they don’t have a clue as to the kind of environment they’re entering. I don’t want to be condescending, but you have obviously jumped into this without having a clue as to how to get out of it.”

  The leader of the filth by the door was now eyeing them openly and twirling a knife on the tabletop, the tip slowly making a grove in the wood.

  “I don’t want to be condescending either, but have you considered that you might be a bit of an idealist yourself?” The smile that followed the statement was all teeth and challenge.

  “How so?” He willingly swallowed the hook, the line, and the sinker, and was now aiming for the fisherman.

  “You turned up. You knew what I was going to ask of you. You knew what kind of mission this was. And yet here you are. What for? The pleasure of turning me down face to face? There are easier ways to rub it in. The chance of free liquor? I know you hate that stuff just as much as you love it. No, I think you came here to challenge yourself. To force yourself to look at the man in the mirror. Maybe you don’t like what you see, but I see a man who is not beyond redemption. I see a man who needs a purpose in life. I see a man who just might rise to the occasion and do what needs to be done. And I also see a man who would love to be the first to set foot on Mars.”

  The hook was firmly lodged in his mouth, the line and the sinker as well. But the fisherman stood calmly on the pier, reeling in his wounded prey, safely out of reach of snapping teeth.

  At least from this predator.

  ◆◆◆

  “Who’s your friend, Reiner?” The voice was grating and ugly, the nasty scar running the length of his throat obviously the remnant of what damaged his vocal chords sometime in the past. That he had survived the cut was nothing short of a miracle. The man leaned over our table, his hands slightly raised as though he wanted to make a grab for me. His friends were spread out like a flock of geese behind him, watching the encounter with hungry eyes.

  I did not respond.

  “Not my friend Ben, just somebody thought he was clever.” Reinholts leaned back in his chair, marking his distance and making it obvious I was on my own. Fair enough, I was in their domain, and I could play by their rules. Or I could break them.

  I said nothing. I made no move.

  “Well then, if you’re not a friend of Reiner, then you have no friends here at all. With a fancy suit like that, I bet you can afford to buy us all a drink as well. Might be we could be friends, then?” A bottle to the temple was the closest I would ever get to buying him a drink, and he knew it.

  I made no reply.

  “What’s it going to be, slick? Will you buy us all a drink or will you kiss my blade?” He put his hand on the hilt of his knife, slid it an inch out of the scabbard and leaned closer.

  I made my move.

  Even though the police turned a blind eye on knife fighting, there were still some rules they were bound to enforce. For instance, if somebody drew a knife on you without prior agreement or provocation, it constituted an unprovoked attack and you were allowed to defend yourself. With deadly force if necessary. He had just drawn on me.

  I defended myself.

  In one motion I dropped the glass I had just started to raise to my lips, grabbed the handle of my knife with my thumb and index finger and flicked it underhand, out, up, and forward without ever releasing my grip on the handle. The blade glinted in the dusty rays of sunlight as it crossed the distance in less than a second. As the glass hit the table, the edge of my knife entered the unscarred side of his throat and traversed the distance to his jaw before the whisky spilled from the shattered glass. The only resistance was a slight tug as he reeled back and his jawbone released its grip on the knife.

  Ben made a gurgling sound and threw both of his hands up to protect his vertically slashed throat, staggering backwards into the arms of his shocked friends.

  “I did not cut deep enough to damage the main arteries, but even so you might want to get him to a hospital as quickly as possible.” His friends backed away, pulling their injured leader out the door, leaving a trail of blood as they left.

  “At least now he will be symmetrical.” I carefully wiped the tip of my knife on the faded curtains by the table.

  Reinholts eyed me with a crooked grin, his fifth drink half-drunk and forgotten on the table. “I’m in.”

  I took his glass and downed it myself, for the first time during the encounter feeling a vague unease.

  3. The Fight

  More than two years later, and the unease had yet to dissipate. If anything, it had intensified. A man confronting me, about five foot eight, weighing half again as much as I did with six inches less to spread it out on. A man with muscles and reflexes honed to perfection in a thousand fights, a man who wanted me dead. His hair was buzz cut short, his prolonged jaw was clean shaven, and the long scar tracing his nose on one side spoke of a close encounter sometime in the past. It did not intimidate me. A man with a scar was just a man who had not adequately defended himself. My scars were all internal, and so far, they had all been acquired back home.

  Home. Just one word, and a world of meaning. The place you hang your hat, the one place above all others where you are safe, where you can unwind, relax, take a deep breath and just forget about the troubles of the world. Home. The Wayfinder was to be our home for the next eight months, and our home had just turned into a battleground.

  Captain Reinholts eyed me from across the room, his eyes intent on mine, wary of the slightest move on my part. The knife glinted dully in the ambient lighting, and my pulse beat a steady beat in my ears. Adrenaline filled my veins, and my muscles were tightly wound and ready to explode. I was sweating, but not profusely. The grip of the knife felt good; leather and steel combined to make a perfect fit in my hand. The balance was just right, it could be thrown, stabbed or s
lashed at the flick of a wrist. I smiled at my opponent, and flicked it over to my left hand.

  ◆◆◆

  The Billionaire switched the knife over to his left hand. It was a custom knife, tailored to his strength, his anatomy, and his build. It was a piece of beauty, and profoundly deadly. He had shown it to the captain a couple of days into the journey, not bragging or flashing it as some might have done, but merely showing a tool of the trade to another who might appreciate the craftsmanship. The balance was wrong for the captain, of course. It was customized to fit the longer fingers of the other man, and it was slightly off for the shorter, stronger fingers of the captain. But still, it had felt like a sniper rifle compared to his own bowie. But then again, a knife is a knife, and the most important thing to do with it is to stick it in your opponent. The captain shifted his weight and attacked.

  ◆◆◆

  When fighting with a knife, the most important thing to remember is not to get stabbed. Seriously. It might seem to be the most fundamental thing in the world, but most amateur knife fighters don’t take this into consideration for a single second. And a second is a very long time when the average response time for the nervous system is measured in milliseconds. If you are stabbed, the body reacts instantly trying to protect its most vulnerable parts. You fold over, most likely into the thrust, the knife slides all the way in, and you die. If not then and there, you are most likely gone within a few breaths. Don’t get stabbed.

  The captain made a lunge toward my midsection, but I was ready for his obvious feint. His foot followed his body on the parallel side, and if I had stayed where I had been just a second earlier he would have knocked me cold there and then. As it was, I managed to both deflect the knife with my own and pull myself backwards to evade his main kick. But just barely, he was fast, and both the knife and the foot would’ve made a fatal dent had they connected as intended. I composed myself and felt for the back of the wall with my free hand while my opponent bounced off the wall to my left. Even though there was an opening, it would be a mistake to counterattack so soon after his first lunge. A master knife fighter would be using the entire first attack to set an eager opponent up for a feint, and although the captain didn’t show any signs of being more than merely excellent with the knife, it was not worth it to push it so early in the joust. If he was merely proficient with the blade, there would be other opportunities, and if he was a master, then I had just avoided a deadly trap. I aligned my body with the wall and shifted the blade to my right hand again and waited for the next move.