Chapter 12: The Message

Commander Ramirez walked into the library and sat down in a chair across from Daria. In an already tired voice she said, "Daria, as much as I hate to say it you are about to become the first Martian war reporter."

Daria deadpanned, "Daria Sloane reporting on war from the planet named after the Roman god of war in the colony named after the same god in Greek. Gotcha. I figured as the 'storyteller' for the colony I would wind up documenting this conflict, whatever it becomes."

"What I really need is about 3 to 5 minutes of information I can send to Houston. There are still a few hours to send it via relay satellites before the Earth becomes completely inaccessible to communications. Before coming over here I sent you some additional information we developed in Command Council."

Daria paused a moment, "I received that. I will incorporate it into the message packet I am already putting together. When do you need it?"

Ramirez answered, "I plan to send it 30 minutes before the communications blackout. That way there is not enough time for Earth to do anything to tip off our enemy before the blackout. The enemy would simply respond to the charge by saying 'Oh, they are misunderstanding our intent. We are just using these robots for peaceful exploration, which is our right. We will look very negatively on any interference by your colonists with our exploration efforts.' We will need to be ready after the blackout to show the battle and the enemy's destroyed robots.

Elaborating on her point, "I am also concerned if I send it too soon and they confront the malefactor that a message will be sent to the robots to just destroy everything. Maybe that is paranoid, but sometimes being paranoid doesn't mean they aren't all out to get you. I am expecting the battle to commence at the start of the blackout or shortly thereafter. We will then have a few hours to maybe a day to defeat the robots before they can receive any new instructions. As it is we do not know if anyone is aware one of their ships crashed. We have to assume that they do. However, that does not mean they know that they have lost the element of surprise."

Daria responded, "This is definitely not what I signed up for!"

Commander Ramirez laughed wearily, "None of us did, Daria. We wanted to be explorers and expand the horizons of humanity. Now we are dealing with the basest of human endeavors – war. Thank God that we have a dozen highly experienced retired military people to mount a defense."

"I will second that," Daria said in total deadpan.

Ramirez mused, "When Erwin came I don't think he ever in his wildest dreams thought he would be planning another battle. He came to plan long distance exploration missions on the surface."

Daria asked, "Are all of our retired military people veterans of the robot war?"

"Yes," Gonzales replied. "Of the dozen, 8 actually faced them in battle. Believe me, they have no great desire to do that again. The one thing the military ingrains in you is that there are simply times that you do what you have to do whether you like it or not."

"Understood," Daria responded. "I will have the package ready for you at least an hour before transmission. I can do it earlier if you want to go through some review cycles."

"I will probably only have time to review it once. Do your best, Daria. I will look at it. If it is good enough we will send it without editing. I am trusting you on this." With that Ramirez got up and left the room.

Daria started working on the storyboard and script for the 3-5 minute message. She hadn't really done something like this since she worked for Sick Sad World. She thought, 'Maybe now it should be Sick Sad Solar System.' Daria felt angry, sad, and scared all at the same time. She certainly had confidence in the people here. They were all quite capable. Still, there was a battle looming and she certainly did not want people she knew and lived with to die. Down deep she knew if they lost this battle, then she herself might not be alive much longer. That made her sad and scared. It would deprive her children of their mother and her grandchildren of their grandmother. Sure there were big risks in exploring another planet. Sure there were risks traveling to and from Mars. Still, everything was designed for safety and people worked to ensure your success. This was the opposite. As for death, she spent a few minutes contemplating things Father O'Neil had said to her. It was comforting, but now she had to concentrate on the task at hand.

The last 17 hours had been a whirlwind of intense work, utter boredom, lunch, dinner, and some restless sleep. Daria and Tom had made sure to spend a little bit of time together. One thing Daria had learned over these past hours was that passion can be spectacularly intense if there is little time and a real possibility that one or both of you may be dead shortly. At least they had made each other aware that they were both quite alive.

Tom was going to be doing logistical support for the positions. That meant he would be exposed, though he himself would not be firing weapons except as a last stand. Daria certainly hoped it would never come to that. These robots were tough, but they had good military people who had defeated them before.

Daria sat back in her chair and one last time reviewed the message that Commander Ramirez would send to Houston. It was 3 minutes of intense reporting, but Daria had managed to pull it together:

"Attention Houston. This is a Code Red transmission. It is classified TOP SECRET. [5 second pause] This is Commander Mia Ramirez of the Aries Colony on Mars. We are being invaded. As Colony Commander I am declaring an exclusionary zone of 100 km around the colony. Anything entering the exclusionary zone without my expressed permission will be destroyed upon detection and without warning."

At this point Daria changed from Commander Ramirez to her own voice. She narrated the message in her very own total deadpan. She started with video of the smoke plume. "At 0835 five sols ago we detected a smoke plume from what was found to be a crashed spacecraft. The craft was clearly designed to evade detection as it approached the planet." Here she showed video of the outer hull and its anti-detection coating. Then she switched to an interior still picture. "As you can see, inside the craft were three Chinese Model 26 Groundfighter robots. This next image shows how the robots were carrying their weapons. Furthermore, inside the spacecraft was a large container of ammunition as you can see here. These robots are now no more than scrap."

Certainly the people in Houston were smart enough to know that this was not a good situation. Daria was instructed to avoid providing any information which would indicate their true ability to defend themselves or any information on their battle plans. Houston needed to know about the situation and how it developed not how it would be resolved. Also, there was always the possibility – maybe a strong possibility – that there was a spy feeding information to the enemy.

Now Daria switched back to Commander Ramirez, "Additional craft have landed successfully. As you can see from this video there are currently Groundfighter robots moving on the surface. They are heading toward Aries. We can only conclude that the intent of whomever sent them is hostile and we will deal with the situation accordingly."

Ramirez stated, "I am deeply disappointed in this blatant violation of the Mars Exploration Treaty of 2036. When this current situation is resolved I intend to provide what evidence I can of the origins of this unprovoked attack. I expect that measures will be taken back on Earth."

"Assuming all goes well, you will receive a communication from us on the other side. This is Commander Mia Ramirez, Aries Colony on Mars. This concludes this Code Red communication which is classified TOP SECRET."

Daria made certain that the words "TOP SECRET" appeared at the top and bottom of the video throughout. Then she sent it on to Commander Ramirez for her review. Ramirez responded a short while later that it was exactly what she wanted and that the message would be sent at the designated time.