Local Time: 2100 Hours
March 21, 2161
Location: South Pole of Mars
Expedition 4I1P
Assigned Personnel: Ltcmd Jacks Finley, Sgt Miranda Finley.
Attached Personnel: 12th Marines, 1st platoon.
Research Staff: Doctor Ryan Kline, Doctor Kathleen Wolfe
Stated Purpose of Expedition: Locate pings from an unknown Martian facility, buried at an unknown depth beneath the South Pole.
"Doctor Wolfe!"
The howling gale blew across the sublimating plains on the south pole, and Jacks Finley strode over the martian rust, terraforming had progressed admirably, and the thickening atmosphere had begun to show effects. But the winds blowing over the plain they stood on, atop a vast expanse of sublimating CO2 ice, were so loud that Jacks had to shout to be overheard, and her target, wearing a thick atmospheric suit, turned. She couldn't see the older woman's face under her thick helmet, the polarized surface protective against the sun's glare.
"I can hear you, Lieutenant Commander. What is it?"
The woman's tone was, if Jacks was being polite, brusque, and if she was being honest, full of frustration.
"Newest update from UN Akagi has us only getting another 4 to 5 hours or so before she'll have to move on, and we'll lose our orbital impunity by then."
The scientist turned away from Jacks, staring at the canyon ahead of her and pursing her lip.
"Bring in the charges, we cannot afford to let this discovery go to waste and I'm not letting some neo communist or corporate stooge take this digsite. I do not want to know what they would do with it."
Jacks nodded, and signaled her team. They had not wanted to use explosives, initially, mostly due to the risk of damaging the complex, but Wolfe had been correct, the orbital period was limited, and while a few dropships making their way to and from the surface was inherently suspicious, the Akagi was more than capable of slaughtering anyone in her path. The problem was that the destroyer was needed on the front lines, and could only be there for a short time, and then, the Koslovics and Friedenists would pounce with their much more numerous, far nastier swarms of planetside gunships.
Sure, they couldn't leave their fights with each other immediately, especially not with the formidable armament of the Akagi and her fighter wing hanging over their heads. But the moment she left… that would change.
So for now, Jacks watched the ridgeline with her rifle raised, she watched as the Eopelecanus dropship that had landed her squad of marines and the researchers alongside them landed once more, this time disgorging a pair of pallets. The ATV's it had brought down before were quickly employed, and the explosives were driven to the crevasse.
Jacks wanted a smoke, she also wanted this to start making sense, but she wasn't even sure why she'd been taken off of her captain's ship. She had no real idea why she was here in the first place, the assignment hadn't provided answers anyway (or any form of information really), and Akagi's captain hadn't known anything either, only that it had come from some of the highest authority in the UN. Sponsored directly by Japan, the US, and Canada, as well as Germany and Britain.
It made no sense, she scuffed her boot through some of the Martian rust, pondering what exactly was happening to justify such secrecy.
Really, the only interesting pieces of the area were the old thermonuclear craters leftover from the early settlement of Kibō a few dozen miles away. It remained a black mark on the UN's record that they'd been unable to stop terrorists from obliterating the peaceful research colony, and the technology and data lost had been something that Wolfe had bemoaned when she'd gotten drunk with the marines a few nights prior.
Miranda hadn't gone easy on them the morning after, and even now, Jacks was watching as her sister was shouting orders and setting demolition charges. Sergeant Miranda Finley was not a woman you disagreed with, at least, not vocally and not when in proximity to her first love, that being explosives.
As she grabbed one soldier by the collar, and another marine by the faceplate, Jacks hid a smile, her sister's bellowing likely so loud that her soldiers could hear it even without their comms. The woman had earned her stripes in what felt to Jacks like a lifetime of service, expertise in demolitions being one of the only things that the Marines could get her to sit still for.
That made her one of the best demolitions officers in the newly born UN Fleet, but still.
As she finally released her soldiers, Jacks turned away from Miranda and back to the scientist, Wolfe, who was measuring something with a careful gaze playing over the instruments in her hand.
"What… are we looking for, if you don't mind me asking?"
The woman turned her gaze to Jacks and spoke frankly.
"Oh? Are you actually interested or making overtures out of politeness while we wait to deface a potentially priceless cultural relic?"
The snappiness of her tone had Jacks hurriedly raising her arms up, letting her rifle hang in its sling as she did so.
"Woah woah woah, curiosity… that's all, you don't have to rip out my throat for it."
The scientist did not apologize, instead, she turned away from Jacks and spoke gently.
"Kibō was not just another settlement, it contained the last of the heroes who fought in the Siren War."
"Oh."
That was a statement. The global conflict, starting in the latter days of World War 2 and driving the world through almost 60 further years of literally globe spanning conflict and death… it was hard to believe they'd ever won.
"How did they get here!?"
"They wanted to be left alone and thought that this was the best practice. It was… to put it bluntly, a terrible decision that cost us some of the best and brightest minds the world had ever seen."
The scientist clenched her hands.
"Most of my family was on that ship, most of them are long dead, but they would have left descendants, I hoped… to meet them one day. Before I knew what happened to the colony."
"The bomb, right?"
"Yes. Zero Eight Hundred Martian Time. June 21st, 2035, the colony of Kibō stops pinging its "all clear" signal as a trio of "modern" warships plunged into the atmosphere above it, less than a week later, an enormous thermonuclear detonation erased the colony from existence and carves a massive trench deep into the southern CO2 ice caps of Mars. Just like that, the last people who could remember the war were gone."
Jacks paused for a moment…
"You can't possibly mean to imply that the Awakened were real!?"
The look that the scientist shot her was poisonous.
"They were. Despite what the world's governments like to say."
Jacks had to struggle to wrap her head around such a statement. Everyone knew the awakened weren't real, they'd just been an exercise in propaganda, that women came back as living incarnations of warships. That they were superhuman, capable of feats of strength and intelligence beyond the pale. High morale given to the public to keep the war going and hide how dire things often were.
It just wasn't true. There was no real way that science had given rise to such people.
"Do you have proof?"
Wolfe shot Jacks a look like she was dumb.
"Oh yes Kathleen, surely you can dig up conclusive evidence of an elite strikeforce of specialized people who toed the line more between mysticism and reality than anything else, people who were exclusively women and often fought on the most desperate frontlines of the most destructive war in history. A war that left major continents flooded until as late as the 2090's, a war that devastated records and left major landmarks either underwater or destroyed."
The tirade had Jacks once more raising her hands up. Hoping to placate the tiny, disproportionately irritated scientist.
"Jesus… I get it, ok?"
The woman paused for a moment.
"My apologies, I should not have lost my composure. Now, are you ready for the detonations?"
Jacks turned, just in time to see Miranda's soldiers peeling out of the canyon and signaling with raised arms they were ready to detonate it.
She nodded to the scientist and began the final steps. But… before she could, Wolfe stopped her.
"Wait, just a moment, I'm getting some strange readings from the canyon on the geiger counter, can you take me closer?"
"Doctor… Do we have the time? It's taken Miranda almost 3 hours to set the charges, if we delay…"
"Yes, it'll have to wait, can you stall the Akagi?"
Jacks turned…
"I can try. Cooper, get me Akagi Actual."
The radioman nodded, passing over the heavy earpiece.
"Akagi Actual, make it quick Jacks, over."
"Yes Ma'am. Doctor Wolfe wants to get another reading, she's asking me to delay our departure by as much time as she may need, over."
A pause from the radio.
"UN-Command wants to know why, over."
Jacks turned to Wolfe, who was walking towards one of the ATV's.
"She's getting some readings on the geiger counter she wants to test, over."
Another pause, crackling static.
"Fine, you've got one more hour before we have to leave, maximum, out."
The woman didn't wait, the scientist ahead of her already mounted up and moved towards the edges of the canyon. Jacks started her own ATV, chasing after the other woman, her long coat flapping in the rush.
By the time she'd caught up, the woman was scanning something near the crater, and as the counter began to tick over rapidly, Jacks stepped back, cueing a rare smile to form on the imposing face of Doctor Wolfe.
"That wouldn't save you if it was at lethal levels, Lieutenant Commander."
She paused, shook some martian rust into a tube, and removed a chemical stick from… one of the pouches on her suit.
"Luckily for the both of us, it's not lethal, rather, would be to unshielded humans after a few hours, but not to us, and if you're unshielded here…"
She let the thought trail off at Jack's grimace, standing up and frowning.
"Strange though… the radiation shouldn't be this high here… especially given the distance from the Kibō exclusion zone."
"Exclusion zone?"
"Were you not briefed on why the idiots up there are waiting for the Akagi to leave?"
Jacks shook her head.
"Only that they wanted us to escort you and support you…"
The scientist shook her head, tapping a finger against her bubble helm, turning back to look at the canyon, then to the far North.
"Hummm… Lieutenant Commander, your sister is a demolitions expert, yes?"
"Yeah, 'randa's one of the best, why?"
"Call her up here, I have a question for her."
Jacks switched her channel to Miranda, firing off a quick request even as she watched Wolfe continue to poke about the soil, muttering to herself and taking further samples.
By the time Miranda reached them, 20 minutes later, the half hour alarm tinged within Jacks's helmet, warning her that the Akagi's orbital period was coming to an end.
"Sergeant, in your experience, could a canyon like this have been caused by a thermonuclear blast?"
"I mean… maybe? No one's exactly shooting nukes that size at Mars anyways… and the long term effects are kinda poorly understood."
Her sister's voice, a polite contralto that still showed her relative insecurity with interacting with someone she idolized, buzzed over the comms.
"Would it leave radiation strong enough to kill were we humans breathing here?"
Miranda paused for a moment.
"In my opinion Ma'am? No, even with Mars being relatively sterile, the storms of dust that blow through here and the solar winds should have long since moved radioactive material further across the planet, spreading it out. But… Why do you ask?"
"There's lots of radiation here, lots of material scattered about this canyon, and it doesn't make any sense, unless…"
She paused, turning to the far end of the canyon.
"Jacks, call the Akagi, tell them we may have found some of the remains from the Kibō colony. Ask them to scan the canyon entrance using their targeting lasers, if you please."
Jacks had to catch her breath, and Miranda staggered back.
"You… no, what!?"
Wolfe turned to face them, the polarization of her helmet dimming to reveal her eyes watering slightly, from tears or something else… Jacks wasn't sure.
"If this archive contains even fragments of their research… it could be-"
"The difference between a speedy end to the war… or a slogging conflict."
The implications were shattering.
Jacks was struggling to breathe… But she did as the scientist asked, and pulled her communicators up, radioing to the Akagi.
"Akagi Actual, send your traffic, over."
"Akagi, run your scanning lasers over the canyon, if possible, Wolfe thinks the facility is a surviving archive from Kibō."
The pause was drowned entirely by the thundering of Jacks' heart in her ears.
The rumbling, shattering crash of a Frigate's engines, kicking on as the Akagi lowered into the atmosphere of Mars could be heard even from hundreds of miles away on the ground as the beautiful frame of the vessel executed a low rolling maneuver that bled off a majority of the heat from reentry and slowed her descent to a rotating crawl.
"Akagi Actual, HIGHCOM has redesignated us to this area specifically, and we're running our lasers through the canyon as soon as we stabilize, best to get your people clear of the path. Out."
The silence that followed was broken as Miranda began shouting orders across the squads commlinks, it was a testament to her marines and their discipline that they hadn't turned to gawk at the imposing, massive form of the frigate as it rolled over, venting steam and plasma from its hull as it finally slowed, kicking on its atmospheric thrusters. It would land later, but for the moment, as flanking bays on its sides opened wide and disgorged half a dozen fightercraft, Jacks was focused on watching as her squads withdrew from the canyons.
It took nearly 20 minutes, before the powerful targeting lasers aboard Akagi, mounted to the forward antenna assembly, began to soak the canyon, completing their scan.
The results were… inconclusive.
"Jacks, Akagi Actual, transmitting the mapping."
A holographic overview appeared in her helmet, crude, flickering, but there, and as soon as she brought it to Wolfe, the scientist had it projected through to the table.
"Gather your people, I think I have an idea of what happened here, and I think we'll have our answers soon enough."
20 minutes saw the entire group of marines standing in a makeshift tent that overlooked the vast canyon, carved into the ice itself. Sure, it might close when Mars entered its winter period, especially when they rotated out of the sun's glare, but for now they had time.
The flickery, indistinct mapping done by the Akagi's lasers revealed very little of the interior of the structure, but what was clear was the doorway into it, along with… scars?
Jacks let her eyes move to the doctor, and met her cold gaze head on, she got the sense as if she was being evaluated by Wolfe, and the woman nodded when she quirked her head at the map. Before she cleared her throat and began to speak.
"This canyon is mostly natural, but with a caveat, here, here and here, where those channels cut towards the structure, those aren't natural, and we know this because of the geiger counter readings I've been able to piece together from the surroundings of the impact zone indicate vastly higher , but… here, near the entrance to the canyon…"
She paused for a moment, tapping at her tablet, a number of small lines appeared, barely distinct, but there if one looked carefully.
"These are blast marks, a little over a day's travel by foot away from this location is the doomed colony of Kibō, rather, the crater left behind when a thermonuclear weapon destroyed it. However, data from this canyon, collected both by your suits and the Akagi tell me there was a second detonation."
There wasn't a thunderous moment of silence following the revelation, but it was interesting. A part of Jacks thought, two detonations was strange, but if the last defenders of Kibō wanted to hide their research or anything away, then it made sense to bury it.
"However, this is what the canyon looked like at the time of Kibō's destruction, as well as several weeks before. Scans were taken from NASA's monitoring satellites, which orbited the colony at the time."
The difference was stark.
"As you can see, the canyon was much, much more narrow, much more in line with what we would expect from natural erosion and the like, before the detonations, current yield speculations on the device that destroyed Kibō reveal it was not large enough to blow the canyon open from so far away, at least… unless."
"Unless there were two."
"Exactly, Miranda."
The demolitions officer looked surprised to have been acknowledged in such a manner, but Jacks merely offered her sister a gentle smile and a nod.
"With all of the above evidence, I suspect that there may have been survivors from Kibō, survivors who entombed themselves within this structure, perhaps waiting for rescue, or something of the like."
That got reactions, many of Jacks men and women knew what Kibō was, they didn't quite understand the significance, especially the newer marines. They weren't anything more than babies at the time it happened. But her senior staff were now paying full attention, especially the squad leaders. Eyes were narrowed, even now, no one knew precisely who had attacked the colony, beyond the distinctive graffiti left on the site.
"Survivors?"
The scientist shook her head.
"Unlikely, cryotech is still in its infancy even today, nevertheless at that time. and… well, no rations would have lasted the intervening years."
Grimaces rolled across the faces of the squads, before the doctor shook herself out of a memory.
"In any case, the Akagi will be remaining on station over the site for as long as we need her, and her airwing is going to be patrolling, keeping the Koslovists and the Friedens off our backs as we work to gain access to the compound. But we'll be receiving more people and materiel from the Akagi as we set up for a potentially entrenched defense, you have your leaders to report to for that, so I will not occupy any more of your time, just be aware that the doors to the facility could open at any moment."
She stood and remained as the varying squad leaders began to file out of the tent, and Jacks made her way to Miranda and Wolfe, both women staring down at the map, outside, she could hear the shouting as Wolfe's subordinate began yelling orders at the incoming squads of marines, already disembarking from their transports.
"This could change everything, and… what if there are survivors? Especially Awakened?"
Miranda's voice was timid, cautious, and Kathleen tugged at her hair slightly before answering.
"If there are survivors, and if they're sane… it would be the greatest scientific discovery in the history of the UEG's modern expansion, I suspect. But… that assumes they made it and they're willing to talk."
The scientist met Jacks's eyes and grimaced, both of them suspected that was not a likely outcome.