Yo Ho Ho

April 10, m0039


A few days later, the team get another mission - with an initial briefing from the ambassador and, as it turns out, from "Mr Grey". It seems that an E.U. intelligence operation has generated a situation which will require the presence of observers with an American operation on Mars, and the team are getting the job.

Specifically, the Quebec and Maritimes Union security services have been running down a series of shady arms deals, and the case was recently cracked with the help of a quantum computer. However, getting that to solve the suspects' cryptography took several months, by which time, events had moved on. The trail proved to lead to one Josef d'Alembert, a quasi-anarchist radical who also happens to have engineering qualifications. Unfortunately, by the time the authorities on Earth had his name, d'Alembert had, it turned out, travelled to Mars on a tourist visa - and when they looked closely, they found that he had dropped off the radar on Mars. However, his last traceable personal transactions where in the town of Sharona, on the shores of the Borealis Sea. More worryingly, tracking data back and forth, E.U. intelligence determined that d'Alembert may well have received a number of shipments from his friends on Earth - small non-fabricatable items of various sorts that could be used in weapons construction. (No, this isn't a euphemism for anything nuclear, in this case anyway; still, weapons are weapons.) Given that d'Alembert's specialisation is marine engineering, this all looked worrying suggestive.

But Sharona is US territory, so the E.U. tossed this one over to the SIA, with due apologies, a full file of data, and a strongly-worded request to be kept in the loop. The SIA obliged, coming back after a week to say that d'Alembert was still out of sight, but they believed that he had made contact with a faction of the so-called "Boreal Pirates" who operate along that stretch of coast. This, they thought, looked like a job for the US Navy.

Well, the Navy do have units on that ocean - one based in Sharona, in fact - but their feeling was that it would need reinforcement before tackling a Pirate gang. (Actually, the Boreal Pirates are usually regarded as a bit of a joke - their main operational interest seems to be raiding for supplies and recreational pharmaceuticals from the ice haulers on that sea - but this lot may now have better weapons, after all.) So they're airlifting an additional force in from their main base on the Marineris Sea - which is fortunate, because it gives the E.U. a chance to attach the team to the operation, and even to request a lift to the scene with the Navy people.

Which brings matters to the present, as the Navy cargo hopper will be heading out later this day. The team are instructed to handle this tactfully, looking after E.U. interests as best they can while preserving good relations all round.

So, the meeting formally closed, they discuss requirements. It's spring in the north polar regions, but it will still be cold up there... They invest some personal funds in expedition suits, floatation vests, and sealed bags for kit. Not that they plan on going in the water...

Then they head for the field where the US Navy team are preparing to head out in their service's one substantial transport hopper. This team turns out to consist of two humans - Lieutenant Calum Kethburger, who's in command, and his aide, Petty Officer Georgina Romero - and a fair amount of baggage, including a small but doubtless fast water craft (which some observers would tag as a RHIB), with not-very-chatty onboard intelligence, in a semi-dismantled state, two matched cases that give the distinct impression that they may each contain one quite substantial cybershell, and which are indeed referred to as "Alpha" and "Beta", and a third case that looks like it holds smaller objects or devices.

The E.U. team manage to strike up amicable enough relations with the Americans as the hopper heads off on its multi-stage flight northwards. (This sort of trip demands a couple of refuelling stops en route.) Kethburger, who seems to be a conventional sort of junior career officer, gets on well enough with Jianwei, and proves quite amicable to Florence - her looks, and a positive attitude towards navy people (thanks to her rescue by the Royal Navy some time back), maybe compensate for her problematic status as a bioroid, while Romero is happy to chat to Vajra, who gets to meet her wearable system's onboard AI in virtual space. As it's off-duty at this time, it's using a non-standard avatar - something clearly hand-crafted for masculine good looks.

As the hopper stops off at various refuelling stations across the northern deserts of Mars, Kethburger mutters that he hopes that any opposition they may have to deal with aren't running smart intelligence analysis on Web traffic - it's hard to keep a mission like this quiet. But anyway, by the end of the day, the hopper reaches Sharona's airspace, as everyone on board can tell when its flight control systems start announcing repeated minor course adjustments to keep them out of the way of gigantic, lumbering ice-carrying airships. When the town itself comes into view, its nature becomes very obvious; it's largely a working port, processing icebergs as they are towed in from the northern polar cap and sending the water south by airship or cargo crawler. In addition, most of the buildings are designed to be moved uphill from time to time as the sea levels rise. It all looks rather temporary and utilitarian, even transient.

The US Navy base, atop a hill just outside the town, has space for a landing, and the visitors are met by a rather bemused but formally very correct lieutenant named Jane Oppenheimer, who turns out to be the only human naval officer on site, although it turns out that she is assisted by Chief Petty Officer Montezuma, a full-sapient AI. The Europeans are a little bemused to encounter a non-citizen infomorph which rates a military rank despite technically being property, but reflect that something which is responsible for much of the operation of a working base needs to be able to issue instructions with some weight. Meanwhile, Alpha and Beta deploy - they turn out to be a pair of amphibious RATS units - and some smaller, less self-willed combat-model shells appear from the other travelling case and run some self-test routines.

It soon emerges that Kethburger has seniority over Oppenheimer, and has been placed in command of this operation - but anyway, there's no time to do more than unload and settle in this evening. The Europeans are assigned temporary quarters - a tent, as it turns out, but quite a comfortable one - and Florence drops off her luggage and goes to investigate what passes for a bar here. Kethburger evidently feels obliged to accompany her, and they find Oppenheimer already present; it looks as though she's glad of company and happy to chat. Florence asks about the local martial arts scene, and Oppenheimer tells her that there is in fact a local version of Zhua developed among off-duty ice workers. Its main special feature is, not surprisingly, that it's learned on icy-smooth surfaces, and fighters learn to allow for that. She pulls some video recordings up on the bar's main screen...

All this combat chat seems to leave Jiawei rather squeezed out when he drops in. He ends up nursing a drink at the back of the room. Meanwhile, Vajra is trying to teach Montezuma the basics of Robo Rally.

April 11, m0039

The next morning, with everyone rested, the lieutenants feel able to call a briefing meeting. Oppenheimer begins by acknowledging that the Navy has not previously worried very much about the Boreal Pirates, apart from providing some ice tugs with occasional escorts; frankly, they've been dismissed as a bunch of kids - but the Anne Bonney Memorial Fleet, the main outfit in this specific area, who d'Alembert seems possibly to have contacted, do seem to have some Martian separatist ideals, or at least tendencies. They're mobile, and probably smart enough to use ice structures for cover from infra-red detectors, so the first step will be to locate them - but there are some likely locations. Hence, the plan begins with a lot of reconnaissance and  intelligence analysis work...