Service and Citizenship

Even now, Mars was still a shithole.

Yes, it had a breathable atmosphere. Yes, it had a magnetosphere. Yes, its temperature had been raised, its soil de-irradiated, and water released from its poles and aquifers, and a million other things that had gone into terraforming the red planet. But at the end of the day, it was still a shithole. A world of sand, rock, dust, and sand, with only a few settlements scattered across its equatorial regions and poles. Mars had been the first planet colonized by mankind, but with the development of FTL travel, with the unlocking of worlds far better suited for human life, Mars had quickly become a backwater. Every child who grew up on Earth knew about Mars. Come their teen years however, few put it on their list of holiday destinations.

Yet he was still here. On Mars. His name was Carl Jenkins, he was undergoing Federal service (extended indefinitely), he was a telepath, and he was a colonel in Military Intelligence due to the latter fact. People who had the means to travel the galaxy didn't come to Mars. People who enlisted, be it through patriotism or the lack of options, usually ended up on Mars in some point in their lives. Only unlike the sods in the Infantry and Fleet who'd use Mars for survival training, he at least had the privilege of standing behind a plasteel window, looking out over Testing Ground Echo 20.

"Colonel."

Doing that alongside Major Shan. The commander of TGE 20, a woman with a cybernetic leg, and clearly of the opinion that she had better things to do than play housekeeper to someone from Intel.

"Major."

He didn't need to be a teep to tell that. Humans wore emotions like they wore clothes - sometimes flashy, sometimes drab, but always visible.

"Suppose we'll begin then?" Shan asked.

He gave a small smile. "At your command."

She didn't return the smile, and instead picked up a comm-link. "Major Shan to Test Team. Commence Sequence One-Four Kappa."

Carl didn't listen to see if the test team answered. He was instead already walking up to the glass wall to the testing ground. An impact crater formed millions of years ago that had been converted into a Federation testing site. The facility they were in overlooked the crater's natural walls, along with the concrete, barbed wire, and motion-seeking auto-turrets that were spaced out around it. And while he couldn't see them, he knew that on the outside of the wall was a perimeter of trip mines that would detonate as soon as they detected anything near them without an IFF tag. Some might call it overkill. But considering that TGE 20 had about thirty Arachnids within its basin, others might call it insufficient.

Carl didn't call it anything. He was more interested in what happened to the Arachnids inside the crater than what would happen to them if they managed to get out. Because Arachnids bled, died, and detonated like any other lifeform. The gas cannisters being shot into the crater, a yellow mist emanating from them? That was far more interesting.

"So," Shan asked. "What happens now?"

He shot her a look. "You're asking me?"

"You're a psychic. Can't you see the future?"

"No." He looked back at the crater - he wasn't in the mood for jokes. He was in the mood to see Arachnids die in horrible ways. He was in the mood for Federation scientists to crack the Arachnid genome and develop a chemical compound that could kill them as surely as any number of toxic substances would kill a human. Unfortunately, while he could see the Arachnids skitter, cry, and snap their claws at the observation point, none of them fell down. The gas dissipated into the Martian atmosphere. And thirty Arachnids remained standing.

"Sequence One-Four Kappa concluded. Stand down." Shan looked at Carl. "Unless you want another go?"

He sighed. "I won't waste your time, Major. Let's not waste mine."

"Of course sir."

He wasn't even listening to her. His eyes were focused on the Arachnids before him. He could swear that some of them were looking at him. That they were aware of a psychic within killing range. Telepathy bound the Arachnids via the brain bugs, it stood to reason that they might be able to pick up on human telepathic signals, especially after he'd made contact with that overgrown slug on Planet P. He took a step forward, pressing his face against the glass.

What do you feel? He wondered, looking down at the warrior strains. Hate? Contempt? He bit his lip. Fear?

The brain bug could feel those emotions. There were those who'd hoped to trigger psychic emotional feedback, or PEF (scientists loved acronyms) in the Arachnid species via the hive creature. Alas, it hadn't come to pass. The war continued. Men and women continued to die. At cost, these thirty warrior bugs had been brought to Mars on the condition that every measure be taken to prevent their escape in the hope of finding a weakness in the teeming mass of chitin and claw that was the Arachnid species. Mars might be a shithole, but even before the war, it was a shithole useful for testing out weapons. Weapons that would never be tested on Earth. Or in this case, creatures.

The Council had allowed Arachnids to be transported to Mars. Under no circumstances would anything other than the brain bug be allowed to reach Earth. The galaxy could burn, billions of humans might die, but as long as Earth stood, as long as the eagle remained flying, the Federation and humanity would survive. And not a single bug was going to risk escaping captivity on Sol III to jeopardize that.

"Colonel?"

He felt Shan's hand on his shoulder. He looked down at her, and while he couldn't see it in her face, loose teeping detected the faintest ounce of sympathy.

"Want a drink?"

He nodded. He'd already teeped a CO in the Federation. He could bend the rules a bit further than that.

The drink, as it turned out, was Martian water. Bottled on the hills of Olympus Mons, or so the plastic bottle that Shan poured out of said. Carl knew that the claim was bullshit, but he didn't care. Water was water. A headache was a headache, and he had one. It was a headache from having to contend with Martian gravity, with stale recycled air, and the lack of any alternative to killing Arachnids than bullets, bombs, and human meat. Somewhere, on the other side of the galaxy, his friends were fighting. He might outrank them, he might pull strings on their shoulders without them realizing it, but as far as he was concerned, he owed it to them to find a way to beat the bugs through means other than brute force. Their lives, and the lives of millions, depended on it.

"Cheers," Shan said.

She sipped the water. He did as well, reflecting that millions was an underestimate. If the Arachnids managed to go on the offensive, billions of lives would be at risk. God's sake, billions of lives were on a planet a few million miles away from here.

"So," Shan said. "If I can ask-"

"No."

"Sir?"

"I'm not here to discuss the war, or research, or development, or anything other than the results of the test."

"I thought the test came under RND."

"Maybe. I'd say it comes under the banner of failure."

Shan frowned. "If I may say so colonel, cynicism doesn't become you."

"Give it a few years Shan, you'll see it very much becomes me." He got to his feet, taking a sip of water as he headed over to the office's only window. "Nice view."

"As someone who works in this office? Not really."

Carl didn't contest the point. The window was small - much smaller than the one he and Shan had been standing at five minutes earlier. It was designed for a single person to look out of, and all that person would see was the red dust and blue skies. The former was the same as it had been for billions of years, when Mars had lost most of its atmosphere and water to the solar winds. The latter had a beauty to it though - mankind had landed probes on Mars in the 20th century, astronauts in the 21st, and he doubted either had anticipated a time when they might stand under skies that looked the same as those of Earth. But in the end, Mars was Mars. Small. Rugged. Worthless. Too far from the war to count, and too close to Earth to matter.

And this was named after the Roman god of war. Carl took another sip and turned around. How's that namesake working out for you, you toga-wearing twat?

Had things become so bad that he was cursing imaginary gods? Granted, far as he was concerned, all gods were imaginary, and if gods or God did exist, they certainly hadn't turned up among the stars. In contrast, what was very much visible in the office were Shan's memorabilia. A few pictures. A few trophies. A medal commemorating the Walatrani Campaign, which given how hard the rebels had fought, was likely where she'd lost her leg. Not like the Arachnids, who focused on killing rather than maiming. And in the corner, a poster. One that he walked over to, squinting.

"Join the SDF," he read out. "Service guarantees citizenship." He looked at Shan. "Thinking of starting another Martian revolution?"

She gave an uneasy shrug. "Just a piece of memorabilia, colonel."

"Memorabilia of a murderous regime that fought against Earth's last democracy?" She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued. "Don't worry about it. The SDF's gone, and the United Nations went the way of all failed democracies."

Shan got to her feet and walked over. He kept his telepathy in check, but nevertheless sensed more of an ease about her. "Funny group the SDF," she said. She looked at Carl. "You know they had a points system for citizenship? That for every Earthen killed, the soldier accumulated points towards being considered a Martian citizen?"

Carl shrugged.

"Not too different from the system we have now."

Carl could point out a few differences. Federal service was just that - service. Service that was mostly carried out through a time in the Fleet or Mobile Infantry, but even a blind man with half a brain could become a citizen if an appropriately strenuous task was found. And besides, even if service was based on how many lives were taken, what did it matter in this war anyway? The Arachnids died by the hundreds of thousands, and they still kept coming.

"Anyway," Shan said. She turned to Carl, holding up her glass for a toast. "Here's to find better ways of killing Arachnids, eh?"

Carl shrugged, and nevertheless clinked her glass against us. "To xenocide," he murmured, before finishing off the water.

He didn't know if a solution could be found. He didn't know if the Federation could win. He didn't know if humanity could survive. But, walking back to the window, he could take certainty in at least one given in this universe.

Mars was still a shithole.

A/N

So, obscure piece of lore in Infinite Warfare, apparently kills carried out by SDF soldiers contributes points to citizenship or something...key phrase being "or something," as I think it's only found in the blurbs when you die. But anyway, drabbled this up.