The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds by Michael Rizzo Page A

Lisa asks me to
refresh them.
    “Something about wild people being hunted by another
group for sport,” I recall. “It’s where his revolver supposedly
came from. Nice piece. Lots of custom work on it. The kind of
weapon you use for precision shooting—sport, not combat. I tried
checking to see if guns like that came in on any of their cargo
drops, but MAI’s files on colony manifests are long since
dumped.”
    “But it’s easily possible someone who still has guns
would use them on those who don’t,” Matthew voices his usual
opinion of human nature.
    “A food source like this would stir powerful
competition,” Lisa allows.
    “You think both groups may live in there somehow?”
Thomas asks.
    “Or close by,” Tru extends.
    “Busted and buried hasn’t been what it looks like,”
Matthew reminds us of the Shinkyo and PK sites. “If it ain’t
stripped, it’s occupied. Either one faction holds the place, or
it’s a DMZ. Site looks like it’s got a lot to fight over.”
    “Other than the missing tanks, there’s no sign of any
activity—past or present—within what we’ve seen around the dome,”
Thomas assesses. “If the Nomads have been trading or raiding here,
they’re careful not to leave trails.”
    “Circle and land out of sight-line,” I tell Acaveda
and Jane. “The Nomads are at least as afraid of this place as they
are of the PK colonies, and we had a time just getting within a
klick of them. Follow defensive protocols. No unnecessary
risks.”
    “Isn’t this where the Lancer potentially became a
ghost-ship?” Thomas recalls.
    “That’s the rumor,” I confirm. “Stay sharp—they’ve
probably seen you coming. Watch for snipers and ambushes. And
everybody out if it comes to shooting.”
     
    The ships find a spot to touch down just to the west,
in the foothills of the Divide, putting one of the branching ridges
between us and the colony without giving up too much high
ground.
    Thomas takes her time. Sets up a sniper team across
the ridgeline overlooking her planned approach, which will also
give us a clear Link feed to watch over them. Then she hikes in
with one squad, leaving Jones in charge of the LZ (and her
backup).
    The squad does its best to hug the natural cover. It
takes them half an hour to make the crossing at a pace that won’t
create rockslides. Then her point man picks out what looks like an
actual water-formed arroyo that seems to flow from the shattered
lower dome. It’s lined with healthy plant life—enough to make our
greenhouse seem sparse—but it’s too wide and shallow for real
cover. It seems to form the most natural path to the dome. They
creep up on it enough to check the soil in the broad “bed”.
    “That’s mud,” Tru confirms. “Or at least it was
recently. Which means there’s flowing water here.”
    Thomas orders her point man—Specialist Jenovic—to
take a quick sample and then get back out of sight. Then they take
the slow crawl over the rocks, following the ridge slope toward the
dome.
    Heat and motion sensors show nothing but greenery
rustling in the wind. The lower dome is almost the size of a
football stadium. Most of the facetted roof is broken in, but the
overgrowth hides the structures—the lab, utility and hydroponic
modules—that plans show should be filling the dome, surrounded by
the terraced experimental gardens. The exposed dome was devoted to
research agriculture, developing hybrids ideally suited to green
Mars. What we’ve seen is a testament to their success (possibly
posthumously).
    Of the buried (or crushed) domes, one was devoted to
terraced hydroponics, food processing and colony support systems,
and the other to colony living and management facilities. There was
also a small-core reactor, supplemented by solar arrays.
    Now that we have a perspective from the ground, I
have MAI project a 3-D model of the original colony structures over
the wrecked dome and slide slopes. The other two domes could well
be concealed whole