Venus Run

Chapter 1: Memorial

DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 423

LOCATION: Aboard The Marley (Main Cargo Hold)

The memorial was held in the dark to save power.

Two thousand five hundred souls stood in the belly of The Marley. When they boarded the ship hundreds of shifts ago they thought Himalaya Market was taking them to Earth, the final promise of the Zionists. Instead he was dead and they were going to Venus.

The air recyclers hummed a low, straining drone, a system pushing its limits.

Phoenix stood on the upper gantry overlooking the main cargo bay, his hydraulic arm hanging heavy at his side. He played with his prayer beads. It was a Sunday by the seven-day church cycle, but just a normal Sevenday in the eight-day week of the Martian calendar. It was a coincidence for the memorial. The two coincided every seven Martian weeks, about six times in a Martian year, which was actually just a Martian cycle, A for spring and summer or B for the fall and winter. A full Martain year consisted of a Year A and Year B, with the Sol count continuing between the two. Phoenix suggested a reading from the church calendar, which was on the fourth Sunday of Lent, but the Zionists, despite claiming a religion based on the planet Earth, did not follow any of the scriptures of the old world, only phraseology and naming conventions.

Below, in the center of the bay, a single spotlight illuminated a makeshift altar: an empty flight chair, draped in a white sheet.

-He was the Spark, an elder said, his voice amplified by the ship's creaking PA system. The old man held a vial of clear water and poured the smallest drop onto the deck.

Waste of perfectly good water, Phoenix thought to himself. He hated this stuff. The strange pastiche of nature religion and mythologizing Earth history didn't seem much different from the new Martian religions, cargo cults around technology almost nobody understood anymore.

-We remember the Halo, the elder continued. -We remember the trap.

Phoenix closed his eyes. He didn't need a recap; he was there. It was only two days ago, drifting in the shadow of a dead warship, watching Himalaya Market climb into a rusted escape pod. He remembered the plan, to use the black box drive to scream a ghost signal, draw the fire, and clear the path. He still didn't understand the black box drive. Had it been destroyed?

-He drew the fire of the railguns onto himself. And in his passing, he awoke the Sleeping King of the debris field.

That's another way to put it, Phoenix thought. He looked down at the crowd. No way they understood the science. Their boy, the miracle worker. What a disaster.

-Now we drift, the elder continued. Phoenix had met this elder yesterday, a good ten years younger than Phoenix, who at forty was probably one of the oldest humans out in space. Pristines could even live to fifty. But there were no real elders left among humans, and it showed in the stupid decisions.

Phoenix tried not to listen but he heard his name--Lyons. He had started using it when he took control of the fleet. It was the given name of the parents in New Paris that adopted him as an infant. He took the name Phoenix the third time he'd seen Jimmy Lyons show up on a death informational bulletin.

Two and a half thousand faces turned upward. They looked at Phoenix. He looked back at them and forced a smile, lifting his one human-looking hand in a greeting.

They didn't see a mercenary who was going to sell them out to spend one more year dying in space. They saw the man who flew The Mighty Sparrow through a wall of shrapnel and saved them.

-Market's successor, the elder said.

-Don't say that, Phoenix yelled down, and took a few steps back from the rail. He felt a tug on his pant leg.

Bit was standing there. The kid was still wearing his yellow drone helmet, the visor sporting a new scratch from the escape. He was holding the hand of the massive HA-1 android they had dragged out of the derelict. The robot was folded awkwardly in the narrow corridor, its sensor strip glowing a soft blue.

Bit pointed to the empty chair below. Then he pointed to Phoenix.

-No, Phoenix whispered to the kid. Definitely not. I'm going to get the fleet to Venus. Whatever they all thought they were going to do settling Earth, the sky cities in Venus have at least as many resources.

Tens of thousands of squatters did live in the two Venus sky cities whose atmospheric controls hadn't been rendered inoperative since the first pre-Rip failure, its nature lost to history. Sky City 3 might as well have always been that way, tilted on a cloud with half its dome and most of its surface missing, but it happened slowly.

More sky cities stopped working after the Rip, the most spectacular of them in the invasion by the fever dream known as the Empire of the Sun in the early 100s, counting the about year-long cycles since the Rip.

The colonists on the Marley fleet could make it, and that's what they were. Colonists. Zealots and fanatics and daydreamers, sure. Phoenix didn't think they'd last more than a couple of days on Earth before the planet killed them. Everyone knew it had been inhospitable since the Rip. Everyone but these Zionists who insisted the Earth was something special and so of course would be welcome back. But maybe even the universe didn't want us, Phoenix thought.

In any case, they thought they could till the Earth, they ought to be equipped to till some of the remaining habitable ground on the sky cities of Venus, and Phoenix was going to get through the inventory to find out.

Phoenix looked back at the crowd. The chanting had started. It was a low, rhythmic thrumming of feet against the deck plates. It sounded like an engine revving.

Phoenix checked his pad.

FUEL: 12% (Critical) FOOD: 14 Days at Current Ration DISTANCE TO VENUS: 28 Days

The math didn't work. The memorial was a nice sentiment, but they weren't going to pray their way to Venus. They'd starve halfway there.

The elder said something rousing and the crowd cheered. Some kind of ceremony.

The elder had really asked Phoenix if he could start a fire in the cargo bay. Of course he said no.

Phoenix turned away. He needed to check the water recyclers. He needed to calibrate the engines. He needed to figure out how to stretch the food. The stuff meant for the surface of the Earth couldn't be pilfered now, to get to Venus only to have nothing to start with there.

He looked at the Happy Android robot and at Bit. He needed to program Hap as a co-pilot. He couldn't do it alone all the way to Venus, not with the Marley fleet behind him. And he had to figure out what to do with Bit. The kid refused to stay behind on the Marley.

Phoenix sighed heavily.

-Come on, Hap, Phoenix said to the robot. Come on, Bit. Show's over. Time to get to work.

Chapter 2: The High Commission

DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 425

LOCATION: Addis Ababa Station (in Hohman transit orbit between Mars and Venus)

The station never stopped moving.

Addis Ababa station was the crown jewel of the Earth Zionist Movement. It was a massive, converted propellant depot caught in a permanent gravitational loop between Mars and Venus. A fortress orbiting in the sun. The EZM built it themselves, with funding from the Saganites during the troubles. The Sagan Cities didn't condone the flippers and viewed it as abandoning their duties, but they wouldn't abandon the young people in return. So they found themselves on the EZM side of the controversy as more of their youth joined the rebel ranks. So now they weren't rebels anymore, they were legitimate members of the New Earth Governing Consortium.

EZM Chief Commissioner Vanderpool stood at the viewport of the Commission Chamber. The glass was thick, layered with radiation shielding that turned the stars a sickly green.

He watched the telemetry feed from the Inner System.

-The bulletin has propagated to the Vesta relay, Vanderpool's assistant, Kemi, said.

She sat at the long table. It was a slab of polished black basalt imported from the Qaddafi Authority.

-The Directorate on Vesta is holding the press conference in one hour.

The Directorate was EZM's political leadership, its public face, based on Vesta in the Belt, where many EZM recruits came from.

-Good, Vanderpool said, keeping his back to her. How is the narrative holding?

-Sympathy is high, Kemi said. The 'Martyrs of the Halo.' Donations to the EZM emergency fund are up two hundred percent. The NEC has approved our hardship grant.

-It's a good lie, a voice grunted from the shadows. But watch out for the Saganites.

Captain Clinton stepped into the light. He wore a pressure suit with the helmet off.

Clinton tossed a data-chip onto the basalt table. It clattered loudly in the quiet room.

-We're not in the clear yet, Clinton said. The MTC deep-range sensors picked up the energy spike in the Halo, he continued. They know The Cold Moon was baited into a debris cascade.

-The MTC won't talk, not to the Saganites or to anyone else, Vanderpool said, turning around. They lost a capital cruiser to a scavenger pilot. They can't admit that. They need the tragic accident story just as much as we do.

-Maybe, Clinton said, unconvinced. He tapped the table, projecting a holographic star chart. A red vector line shot away from the Earth Zone, curving toward the sun.

-But the MTC isn't the problem. The problem is this vector.

Vanderpool looked at the line. It was a flight path.

-They survived, Kemi whispered, her hand going to her mouth. Market saved them.

-Market is dead, Clinton corrected. The telemetry confirms his pod was vaporized. But someone else is flying that fleet. And they're burning hard.

-Where are they going? Vanderpool asked.

-Venus.

-Into more trash.

Vanderpool walked to the table and poured a glass of water. It was clear, distilled, and cold, a luxury.

-This was supposed to be a clean purge, Vanderpool said quietly. Get rid of the old fanatics and the flippers more concerned with the fantasy of resettling Earth than the reality that we fought hard for the legitimacy we have and need to focus on building our capacity. Hundreds of years we've been exiled from Earth. We can wait longer to return.

-Yeah, we can do it together, Clinton said sardonically, repeating a line the EZM made popular when joining the NEC. We can do it together. Resettle Earth as one human family.

Vanderpool pointed at the red line on the map.

-We have two thousand radicalized, starving, stateless fanatics flying toward Venus under a rogue flag. If they land, if they make contact with the Warlords, they could trade our secrets for food. They could figure out they'd been set up.

-We should've shot them into debris as soon as they got far away enough from Jupiter, Clinton muttered.

-Maybe they won't do anything, maybe they won't care, Kemi offered quietly, but no one listened.

-The Saganites wouldn't have it, Vanderpool said, responding to Clinton. I'm sure their sensors go a lot further out than we imagine.

-In any case, the NEC could revoke our Charter, Clinton continued. We go back to being terrorists. The blockade returns. The starvation returns.

The room was silent. The station's engines hummed, a constant vibration in the floor.

-We can't let them land, Vanderpool said. Our narrative only works if they stay dead.

He looked at Clinton.

-You have the Defiance prepped?

-Blockade runner. Fast. Heavily armed, Clinton nodded. I can catch them before they hit the Venusian atmosphere.

-Go, Vanderpool responded.

-A rescue mission? Kemi asked hopefully. She knew better.

-Containment, Vanderpool said coldly.

The chief commissioner looked at the polished table, the symbol of the legitimacy he had built by pruning the rot.

-Send an order to Vesta, Vanderpool told Kemi. Tell the Directorate to execute the dead men protocol. Revoke their citizenships. Freeze their accounts. Erase them from the database.

He looked Clinton in the eye.

-We already listed them as dead, Clinton. The paperwork is filed. Make the reality match the record.

Chapter 3: Already Dead

DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 427

LOCATION: Aboard The Marley (en route to Venus)

One thing Phoenix knew. Being a fleet commander stunk, starting with the coffin-sized pod he shot himself from ship to ship with. He put the Mighty Sparrow on a tow behind the Marley, another can kicking behind the sorry figure of a flag ship.

It stank literally too, of unwashed bodies, recycled air running too hot, and the sharp tang of fear. The Marley wasn't designed to carry two thousand five hundred people. It was an ore hauler, a hollowed-out steel cavern meant for silent, uncomplaining rocks. Now, its cargo holds were a vertical slum of scaffolding, hammocks, and desperation. This was the way humans lived in a lot of the constructed spaces, stationary or mobile, across the solar systems. Some ships had peeled off from the fleet after the memorial, looking to disappear on orbits less travelled. Still, Phoenix wanted the fleet to be even smaller, to bring everyone on board the Marley, to make that work.

Phoenix stood on the upper gantry again, overlooking one of the smaller cargo bays. His left arm, the massive hydraulic loader claw, twitched.

Below him, the mob was surging.

-Back up, a voice screamed.

-The ration is by weight! Not by headcount!

It was a dispute at the Slurp dispensary. A group of flippers from Jupiter who followed Market when they ditched the Sagan Cities and the plans they had set up for them, were arguing with some of the fannies, old-school belt miners who'd fought with the EZM for years and weren't interested in membership in the New Earth Consortium, which, for the fanatics, Market and the Saganite Zionists represented.

-Go back to Mars and make your New Earth, you wanted us in the NEC so much. It's not even getting us to Earth, one of the miners spat out, shoving one of the boys.

The flipper stumbled back, spilling his tray of green paste. The crowd roared. A fist flew. Then another. In the low half G of the thrust gravity, the fight was slow, ugly, and dangerous. If someone cracked a seal or punctured a water line, they were all dead.

Phoenix sighed. He tapped his comms bead.

-Bit. Drop the hammer.

The service elevator behind the crowd hissed open.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps shook the deck plates. THOOM. THOOM.

The crowd froze. They turned.

Towering over them was Hap. The HA-1 Android was a wall of chipped industrial orange paint. It stood eight feet tall on its rocket-thruster legs. Its hydraulic arms, thick as tree trunks, hung low. Phoenix and Bit had started reprogramming him to be more useful.

Bit sat perched on the robot's shoulder, wearing his yellow drone helmet.

Bit tapped the robot's head.

-CAUTION, Hap buzzed. The voice was so deep it vibrated in the listeners' chests.

-UNSAFE WORK ENVIRONMENT DETECTED. PLEASE RETURN TO DESIGNATED

ZONES.

The miner sneered. He pulled a pry-bar from his belt. It's just a dumb loader bot.

Scraps.

He swung the bar at the robot's leg.

Hap moved with terrifying, mechanical speed. It caught the pry-bar mid-swing. The servo in its hand whined. CRUNCH. The steel bar bent like a straw.

-VIOLENCE IS A VIOLATION, Hap stated flatly. COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY.

The miner dropped the bent metal. He looked up at the sensor strip painted with the faded smiley face. He stepped back.

Phoenix leaned over the rail.

-The robot is right, he shouted. His voice echoed through the bay.

-Violence burns calories. You don't have any to spare.

He jumped down from the gantry, his mag-boots absorbing the impact. The crowd parted for him. They looked at him with a mix of fear and hunger.

Phoenix walked to the food dispenser. He picked up the spilled tray of Slurp. He scraped it back into the cup with his gloved finger.

-You want to fight? Phoenix asked the miner. Fine. Do it outside the airlock. In here, nobody bleeds. We don't have the water to spare for cleaning it up.

He handed the cup to the flipper who had been shoved.

-Eat, Phoenix ordered. Then get back to your bunk. We're cutting the ration by ten percent starting tomorrow.

-Ten percent? someone shouted. We're already starving.

-We have twenty-eight days to Venus, Phoenix said, his voice hard. The tanks are dry. The hydroponics are dead. If we don't ration, we run out of food three days before we hit the atmosphere. You can be hungry for a month, or you can be dead before you get to Venus. Or you can start killing each other. But pick one and stick to it.

The silence was heavy.

Phoenix looked at them. He saw the anger. He saw the doubt. They were looking for Himalaya Market. They wanted a sermon. Phoenix was all they had left.

-Clear the deck, Phoenix said.

Slowly, the crowd dispersed.

Phoenix watched them go. He felt a tug on his sleeve. Bit had climbed down from Hap. The kid looked tired. His yellow helmet was scuffed.

-What's Earth? Bit asked.

Phoenix looked at the boy. The question caught him off-guard. It's easy to forget what kids don't know. He answered it like any other inquisitive question the child had had so far.

-It's the planet humans originally come from.

-I'm from Phobos, Bit said, a hint of pride in his voice.

-And I'm from New Paris, Phoenix responded. But don't tell anyone that.

-Then who's from Earth?

-Our parents' parents' parents' parents' parents' parents, a long, long time ago.

-And they want to go back? Bit asked, pointing down at the crowd.

-In a way. It's not going back if you've never been, but something like that. But Earth isn't habitable anymore. We destroyed it.

-Who?

-Our parents' parents' parents' parents', a long time ago too. Now we're just here, Phoenix said with a smile and a shrug, patting the child's head.

-They're scared, Bit whispered.

-Everyone's scared, Phoenix muttered.

He looked at Hap. The robot was standing motionless, awaiting orders. Its yellow standby light pulsed.

-Good work, Hap, Phoenix said. Go guard the water reclamation room. Nobody goes in without a token.

-AFFIRMATIVE. HYDRATION IS CRITICAL.

Hap lumbered away, the deck shaking with each step.

Phoenix rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep. He hadn't slept since the escape. But he couldn't rest. He had to check the fuel calculations again. He had to figure out how to land a ship this heavy on the atmosphere of Venus where the sky cities lay.

He walked toward the docking tube that contained the coffin he travelled the fleet in. He needed to be off this ship. He needed the quiet of his own cockpit.

As he walked, he checked his pad to scroll through some of the bulletins that had come in through the latest packets from the radio beacon they had passed a day earlier. Informational bulletins were transmitted across these beacons as they passed each other, and ships receiving them could sometimes pass them along too. In this way information propagated through the solar system unevenly and in spurts.

Phoenix stopped in the docking tube. With an estimated human population of just four million across the solar system, every death bulletin was tough to see. Mass casualties were gruesome, and had been happening more often in recent years.

A navigational collision in a debris field, near the Checkpoint Zone, sounded like a shift after they had made their escape from the Earth system on a vector to Venus, running and gunning it with not enough gas. 2,100 dead. But it was the Marley and the ships that were still traveling with it.

-Not yet, Phoenix grumbled.

Chapter 4: The Archivist

DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 430

LOCATION: The Deep Archives (West Mars Republic)

Clara adjusted her leg braces. They whirred softly in the silence of the Reading Room. She was supposed to be in her dormitory, sleeping through the Third Shift. Instead, she was three kilometers beneath the polar ice cap, huddled under a holographic table, in the Archives of West Mars.