Nadia went back inside, yawning. She sat at her screen again, and began watching the four Mangalavid channels, switching among them rapidly. Most of the big cities were either openly for independence or in various kinds of stalemate, with security in control of the physical plants but nothing happening, and much of the population in the streets, waiting to see what would happen next. There were a number of company towns and camps that were still supporting their metanats, but in the case of Bradbury Point and Huo Hsing Vallis, neighboring towns up on the Great Escarpment, their parent metanats Amexx and Mahjari had been fighting each other on Earth. What effect that would have on these northern towns wasn’t clear, but Nadia was sure it did not help them to sort out their situation.

There were several important towns still in the grasp of Subarashii and Amexx, and these were serving as magnets for isolated metanat and UNTA security units. Burroughs was obviously chief among these, but it was true also of Cairo, Lasswitz, Sudbury, and Sheffield. In the south, the sanctuaries that had not been abandoned or destroyed by the expeditionary force were coming out of hiding, and Vishniac Bogdanov was building a surface tent over the old robot vehicle parking complex next to its mohole. So the south would no doubt return to its status as a resistance stronghold, for what that was worth; Nadia didn’t think it was worth much. And the northern polar cap was in such environmental disarray that it almost didn’t matter who held it— with most of its ice draining down into Vastitas, but the polar plateau covered by new snow every winter, it was the most inhospitable region on Mars, and there were almost no permanent settlements left up there.

So the contested zone was basically the temperate and equatorial latitudes, the band around the planet bordered by the Vastitas ice to the north, and the two great basins to the south. And orbital space, of course; but Sax’s assault on metanat orbital objects had apparently been a success, and his removal of Deimos from the vicinity was now looking like a happy stroke indeed. The elevator, however, was still in metanat hands. And reinforcements from Earth were due any time. And Sax’s team in Da Vinci had apparently used up most of their weaponry in the initial attack.