"After last time, I thought I'd never get the chance to walk on Mars," Tiny commented as they left the Phoenix by the underneath hatch, unwilling to try the combination of thin atmosphere and relatively high gravity. "Strange. All those other planets, and Mars feels special."
Jason shrugged and adjusted a tank strap. "Just another Spectran base to blow up." A very personal one, this, but he wasn't letting on.
Tiny looked sideways at him - Jason still wasn't used to seeing him in the new visor, what Anderson had called a 'hybrid raptor'. "This one isn't different for you?"
"We need these darn masks. Apart from that - no." A lie, but Tiny seemed to accept it. He kicked at a fractured shard of dome, cloudy with explosion damage. "I don't see any signs they've been back."
"How long would footprints last here, with the dust storms they get?"
"Not long. Vehicle tracks, though, we'd see the lines where the stones had moved. I don't see any." He indicated the cliff face, the explosion scar a mass of tumbled rocks. "They've not dug out the tunnels."
"Or hauled away Skylark for scrap." Tiny pointed at the remnants of Earth's first jumpship, and shuddered. "Do you think they just left the bodies?"
"Not much left, after the explosion." Not out here, at any rate. But Don had said there were bodies in the room where he was captured, and Jason didn't like to think what state they would be in. He cast one final glance out to the horizon, trying to convince himself that he wasn't missing something here. If he was, it was determined to stay missed.
He brought the bracelet up to his mouth instinctively, then remembered and turned the movement into a prod at his mask, activating the longer range communicator. "Nobody's been here since us. G-2, G-3, you ready to join us?"
Princess and Keyop were out shortly, Keyop with the front face of his bracelet open in scanner mode.
"Where?" Jason asked him.
"Up there." He indicated the top of the cliff, pretty much where Jason's memory suggested it ought to be.
"Who's for a climb?" Princess headed for the rocks at the foot of what looked like a promising route.
Tiny groaned. "I finally get to leave the Phoenix and it's on a planet where the air's so thin I can't even use the damn wings."
"You'll live. And it's hardly the first time you've been off the ship." Jason strode after his second, eyeing up the available handholds. There were plenty, and it was only fifty or so feet high. Not a problem for any of them.
As he saw Tiny disappear out of sight over the top of the cliff, Rick sagged back into his chair, finally able to stop projecting a relaxed calm he didn't feel. His first interplanetary mission as part of G-Force. Sure, he wasn't involved directly in the base bust. Not this time. But he was here. Part of the team. Now, maybe, he could take a proper part in the conversations. Laugh with Keyop and Tiny, instead of always being the one laughed at. Not have every suggestion he made dismissed with 'nice idea, but it won't work in practice.' He might be eighty-odd missions behind them in experience, but he wasn't on zero, not any more. Three, and this one an interplanetary one.
He reached over to transfer control across to his co-pilot's station, and then paused. He was the pilot right now, heck, he was in command of the Phoenix right now. The carefully positioned Phoenix, nose to wind, a nice safe distance from the cliffs. He was desperately tempted to lift her, just ten feet on the vertical jets, and shift her sideways and backwards into a more protected location, less visible and out of the wind close into the rocks. Tempted, but not going to. Jason would have his head, and rightly so. What he needed wasn't active mutiny, it was to keep his nose clean, show himself to be utterly reliable, earn his commander's trust. He could do that, even if it took him another six months. But there was no reason why, right now, he couldn't keep watch from the pilot's seat.
"Phoenix," the radio crackled, and he reached for the button to respond.
"Phoenix here, go ahead."
"We've located the shaft and we're going in. Keep her warm and ready to fly."
"Anyone around?"
"No. If they show, keep things sealed up tight. Run if you have to."
In other words, do nothing useful. Rick simply said, "Yes, Commander," and waited for further instructions.
"G-1 out." And the line went dead.
Rick sat and seethed. I'm useless. Everything I do, he has someone check. I'm nothing more than a glorified autopilot.
I can put this right. I'm good at what I do, I'm just new on the team. It will get better. Rick got up and fetched the protocols manual from underneath his own console. Jason might not want him in the field yet, but when he got his chance, the Kite was going to be so well-prepared the Condor would wish he'd used him a whole lot sooner.
