The Earth Defence Force changed the face of Mars. They terraformed so we could breathe the air. They built bases, checkpoints, watchtowers. The liberators soon became an occupying force.

Alec Mason, 2126

Blood and Water

Two days had passed since Captain Andre Billingham had arrived on Mars, and he was still getting used to the gravity.

For the last four months, he'd served on EDS Heracles – a capital ship that, like all ships in the Earth fleet, had artificial gravity set to 1g where centrifugal force could be applied. Outside those sections, he, and every other vacuum nut had drifted around in 0g. Mars, with a gravity of 0.38g made it feel that he was walking on air. Not nearly as bad as the moon, but as he walked around the office of Administrator Davis, he was still checking every step, lest he stumble in these strange environs. The bullet holes and blood splatter that coated the walls? He could take that – he'd seen worse on Earth. The recycled air? He'd been breathing that for four months since he'd taken the space. But the damn gravity? He figured he'd be more likely to die from stumbling and breaking his neck rather than being shot by one of Ultor's mercs who were still trying to hold out for whatever reason drove those maniacs.

Or, potentially, from Capek's bastard offspring that roamed the network of tunnels beneath the mining complex. Luckily he didn't have to go down there himself though. Rather, he had men and women to risk their lives for him. And looking at the terminals that had been set up throughout the office, he saw that all of his units were still operating

"All squads, check in."

So far.

"A Squad, reporting."

"B Squad, reporting."

"C Squad, reporting. Again."

Andre frowned. "Something wrong sergeant?"

"No sir."

"Don't need to come down there myself?"

"Would you sir? That would be great."

"I'm sure it would be. Next sit-rep in fifteen."

Andre walked back to the desk chair, and, finding his footing, returned to looking at the monitor feeds. Shoulder cameras from EDF troopers that were combing the tunnels beneath the complex. So far, they'd found a lot of water, some plants, some fish, and a fair amount of creatures that according to Red Faction members, had been created by Doctor Capek. Since the good doctor was dead, the EDF couldn't question the man himself, and the scientists that had served under him had fled into the tunnels below. But based on what their techies had retrieved from his files, Andre didn't see any reason to doubt the miners' claims.

He frowned, watching as A Squad dispatched one of Capek's monsters without any effort. He vaguely recalled the moment when Ultor had announced that alien life had been found on Mars…and it looked like fish. And plants. And more fish. They'd intentionally built their complex near an aquifer so that they could be self-sufficient as far as water went. And so far, despite breaking every environmental guideline for operations on Mars (and it wasn't as if there were even that many), they had, at the least, kept the groundwater clean. Which was certainly more than could be said for Earth, with groundwater (heck, freshwater of any kind) at a premium.

But still, Andre reflected. Fish. Fish that were practically identical to those on Earth, bar those shark-like creatures that shot out sonar. The most common theory was that the creatures had evolved when Mars had oceans, and as they'd evaporated, they'd made their way down into pockets of water below the surface There'd been some interest, some debate, but with the lack of any little green men, interest had quickly faded. For most people (and certainly Earth's corporations), Mars was just like the moon – a dead world to extract resources from to feed an ever hungry Earth. Ultor had been left alone. Its miners had been left alone. And now, after the deaths of thousands, the people of Mars had paid the price.

"Captain Billingham?"

He looked at the door to the office opened, reflecting that at the very least, the EDF hadn't paid the price. If not for the Red Faction, they would have, thanks to the laser satellites that Ultor had installed, but already, Andre could see where this was headed. The EDF would be portrayed as the saviours of Mars, and no-one on Earth would be the wiser. People like him would be treated as heroes.

"I got you the dossiers you requested."

People like Lieutenant Nguyen though? Not so much, he reflected. Too low in rank, and too damn earnest to play the game that the Council wanted its soldiers to. Nevertheless, he gave her a smile and took them, laying them out on his desk.

"Funny, isn't it?" Nguyen asked. "Ultor, still using paper on Mars of all places."

Andre ignored her and continued looking at the dossiers. Names like Gryphon, Davis, Hendrix, and Masako leapt out at him. People of interest to the investigation the EDF would be running. Shame that most of them were dead. He'd already checked the dossier labelled "Parker" yesterday, and had concluded that the man was a psychopath. Not that he was going to mourn the deaths of Ultor thugs, but did he have to cause so much collateral damage in the process? In an ideal world, people like Parker would have joined the EDF and preserved peace through maximum firepower (including the ability to carry all that firepower somehow), but alas, the world wasn't ideal. No world was.

"Sir?" Nguyen asked.

He looked up at her. "You still here?"

"You didn't dismiss me sir."

"Oh." He looked back at the dossiers and gave her a wave. "Dismissed, lieutenant."

He heard some footsteps head away from his desk. What he didn't hear was the sound of the door hissing open.

"Wow," Nguyen said. "Are those the caves?"

What he did hear was the sound of Lieutenant Carolyn Nguyen being an idiot.

"That where the fish are?" She looked away from the shoulder camera feed of Lieutenant Evans of B Squad.

He couldn't help but smirk as he leant back in the chair. "They are."

"And the monsters?"

The smirk faded and he returned to looking at the dossiers. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that lieutenant."

"Oh. Okay. But there's rumours of him creating nanotech, and artificial gravity like the one Ultor used in its command satellite, and-"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that either."

"Yes sir. Of course sir. Not at liberty to discuss sir."

Andre hoped that she'd get the hint and leave, because in his experience, there were three types of people who enlisted in the Earth Defence Force – the desperate, the depraved, and the believers. People who joined because they had no choice, people who joined because they enjoyed killing other people, and people who honestly believed that they could make a difference in the Sol system. Having grown up in the slums of Hamburg, Andre fell into the first category. In the months he'd known Lieutenant Nguyen, he could tell she fell into the third. And at least for now, he didn't want to take that away from her.

"Sir? May I speak freely?"

She also fell into the category of not knowing when to take the hint. Sighing, he leant back in his chair. "Fine," he said. "Speak."

She began pacing around, rubbing her hands together. "Sir…I know rumours are for enlisted men…and women…and people in-between…and…" She trailed off, and managed to stand up straight, and more importantly, stand still. "But there's a lot of talk as to what's going to actually happen here."

Andre raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"It's just…like, Ultor's big. And we have plenty of testimony as to all the things they've been doing on Mars…but there's also talk that the miners' methods are being called into question, but-"

"The Red Faction will be fine."

"Oh. Good." She smiled, and before he spoke, he felt guilty. Nguyen fell into the category of "true believer." Did he really have to take that away from her right now?

"But I think you should understand the priorities here."

The smile faded, and he made his peace with breaking her ignorance. He'd lost the last of it once he'd been stationed on the moon fifteen years ago, finding that conflict was as much a constant there as it was on Earth. Now on Mars, Nguyen had to lose hers too.

"What is the priority?" she asked.

Andre began to speak. "This is need to know Nguyen, but I have the discretion to give the facts. And here's the fact – the EDF's first priority is to get the Ultor mines up and running again. The Council's given us a month to do that."

"What? With Ultor?"

"No. Under the discretion of the EDF itself. At least in the short term."

Nguyen frowned and began pacing again. "That…I mean, I get it, but…I mean, after all that happened here…"

Andre chuckled. "You really think the Council cares about a few dead miners?"

She stopped pacing and stared at him.

"The Council cares about one thing on Mars, and that's its resources," Andre said. "Iron, osmium, cobalt, nickel…"

"Those are four things."

"Point being," Andre said, frowning at her, "is that Earth needs Mars. We've given Ultor too much leeway, so you'll be finding out five days from now that the Ultor mines have come under the EDF's jurisdiction."

"And the miners?"

"They'll be allowed to work. Better conditions, better pay, better accommodation." Andre chuckled. "We're no angels, but we're not Ultor."

Nguyen nodded, but she didn't look convinced. Maybe because deep down, she always knew. Or maybe she'd truly landed on Mars in the belief that she was just here to "liberate" it and then return to Earth a hero. After all, that woman named Eos had already lined up a dozen interviews with Earth networks already from what he'd heard.

Getting off Mars. Heh. You've probably got the right idea lady.

He watched as Nguyen shifted her gaze to the camera feeds. She folded her arms and murmured, "funny there being so much water here. We fight over it on Earth, but it's ores we're exporting from Mars. Sometimes, I think it should be that." She tapped one of the screens for good measure.

Andre didn't dispute the point. Water was to Earth in the 21st century what oil had been in the 20th. The most precious resource on the planet. A substance that could spark wars, and already had. What determined a country's wealth these days wasn't how much oil it had, but rather its supplies of freshwater. And who had the supplies had the most bargaining power to buy resources from the moon and Mars. The Earth Council might have united the planet under a single banner (the Commonwealth being an exception), but nation-states still existed. And in the year 2075, some fared much, much better than others.

"Anyway," Nguyen said. "I should go." She gave Andre a small salute, and he gave an even smaller one back. He watched as he exited the office before he turned his gaze to the feed.

"Hey guys, got a live one."

He turned to the feed of Lieutenant Drusk. An Ultor merc coming towards the squad with his hands up, emerging from behind a rock by a pool of water…before drawing his pistol and firing at the EDF troops. One of them was downed. The others shredded the merc's body, before it fell into the water, blood spreading out from the corpse.

Blood and water, Andre reflected, as the squad tended to their wounded member. It's always the same.

A/N

So I finished Red Faction, and among everything else, I have to ask - what's with the fish creatures in the water below? Are they native Martian fish, or are they from Earth, brought by Ultor or something? If the former, did anyone have a point of revelation that "hey, life exists on Mars, suck it religion" or somesuch? Or, more likely, am I overthinking things (and yes, I know that the Plague rears its head in later games, but...meh.

Also, why is it that the EDF apparently arrives at Mars within hours in the first game, but the Hydra takes what I'm assuming is however long the player wants it to take to arrive in Guerilla? Did EDF ships get slower over the decades? Or were the EDF forces in the first game much closer?