Her head reeled with the sudden shift in her world. She thought of the cold but familiar ice shelves on Plumas, the water mines, the liquid geysers gushing toward pumping stations on the ice caps.

“Tasia, come back if you can,” Jess repeated. “Or find some other way to make our family proud. I trust you to do what’s right. You can figure it out for yourself.”

Tasia swallowed a lump in her throat. She stared at EA’s placid metal face and imagined the features of her brother overlaid upon it.

“Shizz, I can’t leave now, Jess,” she said. When no further words were forthcoming from the recording, Tasia said sharply, “EA, do you know how to get a message back to him?”

“Back to whom, Tasia?”

“Back to Jess, in response to the message.”

“What message, Tasia?” EA asked.

“The one you just played.”

EA paused, as if reassessing her memory. “I have no recollection of any message, Tasia. We have been here, performing inventory.”

Jess must have appended an erasure command to his recording. Ingenious, but typical. She couldn’t even listen to his voice again, no matter how much she wanted to. Her brother was being very careful, knowing EA was in the vicinity of many troops who might not have Roamer best interests at heart.

“Oh, never mind, EA,” she said, and looked up at the sealed containers of insulated gloves waiting for her inventory check. Her mind spinning, her heart heavy, Tasia plunged into the task with redoubled effort.

75: BASIL WENCESLAS

75BASIL WENCESLAS

Gaping red canyons cracked open like raw wounds, stretching from the EDF Mars base in all directions. From the spherical observation cockpit of the broad-winged glider transport, Basil Wenceslas scrutinized the razor-edged canyons that accented a mercilessly rugged landscape.

Beside him, personally piloting the craft high in the vanishingly thin Martian atmosphere, General Kurt Lanyan considered the canyons to be a challenging but necessary obstacle course. Like a school of silver minnows, mismatched fighters—standard-model Remoras as well as modified private yachts recently absorbed into the fleet—streaked along. The pilots angled around sharp goosenecks, roared down blind gorges, and at the last moment pulled up to shoot straight toward the twilight of open space.

“Troop training is progressing with all due urgency, Chairman Wenceslas,” Lanyan said. “We’ve had a handful of accidents so far, but certainly an acceptable ratio, considering the number and variety of nonstandard civilian vessels we’ve incorporated into the EDF.”

“How many accidents?” Basil asked as he watched a pair of ships perform a breathtaking maneuver in a narrow gorge below, like two daredevil fighting fish.

“Eleven, sir.”

“Fatalities?”

Lanyan gripped the glider’s controls, uncomfortable for a moment, then turned to Basil. “Mr. Chairman, sir… this is Mars. In any accident, fatalities are always encountered. The ships and crews were completely lost.”