The Sands of Mars

Mars was a shithole.

Mars had always been a shithole, Major Reynolds reflected. It had been a shithole for billions of years, when its magnetosphere crumbled, when solar winds had stripped its atmosphere, and when its seas evaporated. It was a shithole when astronomers first peered at the planet through their telescopes on Earth, fantasizing about little green men who'd dug canals to feed their cities. It had been a shithole when probes had first landed on the red world in the 20th century, and had remained a shithole when mining of the dust ball had begun in the 21st. It had become slightly less of a shithole in the 22nd century when terraforming was employed, but that had collapsed within decades. And in the centuries that followed, with the creation of the generation ships, with the ildirans gifting humanity with the FTL drive and secrets of ekti, with the creation of the Terran Hanseatic League and the opening of a new frontier for extra-solar colonization, Mars had remained what it had always been. A dead world with sub-zero temperatures, with a thin, toxic atmosphere and irradiated soil.

A shithole. And thus a perfect testing ground for the EDF.

Frowning, Reynolds looked through the plasteel windows of his office, looking out over the wastes of Tharsis region. Wastes that were little different from the rest of the desolation of Mars, if not for the remnants of crumbling infrastructure that dotted the landscape. Tharsis had been the site of colonization, originally by the long defunct Ultor corporation, then by waves of colonists trying to make a better life on the red planet. Nowadays, Tharsis was little more than a historical curiosity, which was why little of the EDF's weapons testing actually occurred here, even if it did maintain an administrative hub.

"Major Reynolds?"

A hub that he was in command of. Looking around as the door to his office hissed open, he looked at Lieutenant Ganesh as she brought in a pile of papers.

"The reports, sir."

Reynolds didn't even bother giving her a nod. He just sat at the desk and he gestured at her to bring them over. The pile of papers hit the wood (taken from the trees of Theroc no less) and a second later, he began shifting through them.

"Crap. Crap. Could work. In your dreams. Crap. Crap. And…crap." He put the papers aside and looked at the lieutenant, who was just staring at him.

"That bad sir?"

"What's bad? The reports on the latest weapons tests, or the situation the Hansa is in?"

Ganesh shrugged. He could tell that she was uneasy, but bless her, she was at least trying to hide it, and doing a better job than a lot of the screaming morons back on Earth. A year after the emergence of the hydrogues, and the ekti rationing was already starting to bite humanity in its collective baby powdered arse.

"The answer to your question is yes, by the way," Reynolds murmured.

Right now, he didn't have a problem admitting that. Mars might be a world of sandstorms, but that didn't mean that one couldn't see quickly. That one couldn't see the stars. That they couldn't look up, see the moons of Phobos and Deimos (long since converted into EDF defence stations), and reflect that if the hydrogues wanted to, they could arrive at Mars, vaporize the entire garrison, and move onto Earth without a scratch. Sighing, he took the first report again and started a thorough reading, wondering if The Applications of Dark Matter in the Use of a Singularity Weapon had anything concrete to offer outside fringe physics.

"I'm sure it'll get better sir," Ganesh said.

Reynolds grunted as he turned the page. "You still here?"

"Well, yes. I mean, the hydrogues gave us a licking at Jupiter, but they haven't made any moves against us except when we try to harvest gas giants. I mean…" She began to pace around. "Could they be a paper tiger? A glass cannon? Maybe they aren't as strong as they want us to think."

Reynolds grunted. "One of their spheres appeared on Earth and incinerated King Frederick for the world to see. You think they couldn't incinerate the rest of us?"

"Well, I-"

"Or have you already forgotten Jupiter?"

Ganesh stopped pacing around. With narrow eyes and lowered voice, she murmured, "of course not. How could I?"

Reynolds lay back in the chair and tossed the dark matter report aside. "How could you?" he agreed.

Jupiter had been a disaster. The worst disaster in the entire history of the Earth Defence Force. A disaster even worse than losing Mars to the Red Faction centuries ago. Because at least then, the EDF understood the enemy it faced. Those terrorists had been savages, but they were at least human, with human failings and human goals, and in the end, Mars had been reclaimed. It was a war over territory, and therefore, in keeping with the wars mankind had waged since their ancestors had climbed down from the trees. In contrast, the hydrogues' ships had proven themselves to be near-invincible, and their motivations didn't extend beyond protecting their gas giants. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that human (and ildiran) civilization was built on the assumption that ekti would constantly be flowing, that FTL travel would be a constant as well. The Red Faction had emerged twice on this dirtball, both times in the context of Earth suffering from depleted resources. Society had nearly collapsed before the EDF gained control of Mars for a second and final time. Now, what oil had been to the 20th century and water had been to the 21st, ekti was to the 25th, and the centuries preceding it since first contact had been made. Rob the Hansa of ekti, and you robbed the means by which interstellar civilization functioned. Reading a report on the potential of kinetic weaponry against the hydrogues, Reynolds reflected that there was a strong chance that the civilizational collapse that had been predicted for half a millennium might have finally come into play.

"Still, we'll win in the end though, right?" Ganesh asked.

Reynolds grunted as he turned the page. "You still here?"

"What? On Mars?"

"No, I meant-"

"I mean, it is Mars, and Mars is a place where people have shown that a weaker force can beat a stronger one with enough guts and determination."

Reynolds lowered the paper and stared at the lieutenant. "What the heck are you babbling on about?"

"The Red Faction," Ganesh said, smiling like she'd just won a participation trophy after a game of grav-ball. "I mean, the miners in 2075 were outgunned by Ultor, and still managed. And in 2125, they beat the EDF again. Heck, they even took out what was then the most powerful warship ever conceived."

"Jesus lieutenant, don't sound so excited about it."

"And yeah, Mars got back in Earth's hands eventually, but point is, humans can do anything if they set their minds to it, right?"

Reynolds stared at her.

"Right?"

"Lieutenant, that has got to be the most idiotic thing I've ever heard an Eddie say, and believe me, I've heard some doozies." He got to his feet and gestured out of the window, towards the sky. "You saw the Jupiter feeds, and I assume you've read the reports the ildirans sent us concerning the Solar Navy's encounters with the hydrogues. If you think we're some plucky rebellion who's going to fight the good fight and beat the odds, and celebrate with cheese and crackers afterwards, you're wrong." He tapped the report he'd been reading. "This is what matters. Not heroes, not heroines, not the multi-coloured rainbow in-between, this. Because if we don't find a weapon that's effective against the hydrogues, then the stories we'll be telling will be of the good ol' days. When we had FTL travel, and where Earth wasn't cut off from its empire."

Ganesh just stood there, glaring at him.

"Or do I need to explain that to you again?"

"No sir. Of course not sir. Thoroughly understood sir." She gave him a small salute. "Sir."

Too many sirs there, Reynolds reflected, as he watched the lieutenant exit his office. He waited for the door to hiss shut before he turned his gaze back outwards. Towards the dust, the sands, and the faint clouds above the Martian surface. To a world where the EDF had tested weapons for centuries before encountering a foe that no human weapon could touch.

Maybe Ganesh was right, he reflected. Maybe humanity could pull off a victory. After all, they'd defied the odds long enough to touch the stars, so why not a bit longer? Or maybe their luck had run out.

He did know one thing though.

Mars was still a shithole.

A/N

Basically another case of "oneshot based on arbitrary similarities" - EDF exists in both settings. EDF has a base on Mars in both settings. Coincidence?

Well, yes, but drabbled this up.