Mars Fire - Chapter XLII - Sol 16

Previous Chapters: Chapter I , II , III , IV , V , VI , VII , VIII , IX , X , XI , XII , XIII , XIV , XV , XVI , XVII , XVIII , XIX , XX , XXI , XXII , XXIII , XXIV , XXV , XXVI , XXVII , XXVIII , XXIX , XXX , XXXI , XXXII , XXXIII , XXXIV , XXXV , XXXVI , XXXVII , XXXVIII , XXXIX , XL , XLI

It was only hours later, when they finally pulled out of Stockton, that Burrows had a chance to sit down with Ian and explain what had just happened. They had spent the preceding hours loading up the Exeter with pallets of mines and demolition equipment from the Fort O’Neill bunkers, and had rolled out of a night-shrouded Stockton with only the wind and the crisp spotlight beams as company on the dark road back to Home One. Pope was driving, and the rest of the team was scattered through the Exeter’s forward cabin at their usual stations.

“So.” Burrows was on one side of the galley table, a cup of tea held in both hands. Ian was on the other side, an expectant look across his face. “How are you doing after all of this?”

“I feel a bit like everyone is talking a foreign language, to be honest.” A rueful smile pulled across the younger man’s face. “The war situation is unexpected, and the Ranger team thing… I’m getting the idea that you guys are actually more than you’ve been telling me all along.”

“Welcome to the Liberty Zones, my friend.” Burows spread his arms to encompass the rover around them. “Nothing ever really meets the specifications up here.”

“Jokes aside though, the Ranger thing is just another facet of militia work. It’s not something we talk about much, mostly because we don’t need to. Most people know very little about it, and we don’t go around broadcasting it either.” Burrows returned to his teacup and sipped at the dark liquid. He missed coffee, sometimes, but he also knew all too well what it did to him after too many cups. “Remember when we explained the CDM structure to you when you arrived?”

“The tier system, yes. Everyone is a Militiaman, some of the Militiamen are also Minutemen, and some of the Minutemen get turned into Marines.” Ian ticked the points off his fingers as he talked, and for a moment Burrows saw Pope sitting across from him, using the same gesture.

Habits traveled fast in small groups.

“Right. That’s the official, public structure that most people know of. There is a fourth, less well-known layer as well. That’s what you just saw happening outside the fort.” Burrows hooked a thumb at the new patch on his left arm. “Within the Minutemen layer, some people get selected for special training - or already have special training and experience when they get here. CDM Command identifies those people where they can, and then approaches them for more in-depth training and preparation whenever there is an opportunity. After that, whenever something weird or unusual pops up that needs special attention, those people get called up and activated.”

Ian nodded along, and Burrows continued after another sip of tea.

“That’s basically the Ranger layer. We’re effectively dormant until Command needs us. Everyone has some unique specialisation or ability that makes them useful for more complex missions, and when you put all of that together into a single unit, you can end up with a very capable force.” Burrows paused to collect his thoughts before he continued. “It’s the closest we have to special military forces up here, although we are a bit unconventional compared to the traditional idea of what special forces are supposed to look and act like. I think our Marines might be closer to the traditional definition, at least in terms of military structure.”

“Well, you have a regular day job, for starters,” Ian replied, then frowned. “Or is that also a cover?”

“How do I answer that without sounding like a lawyer,” Burrows began, and grinned when he saw the other man also smile. “Short answer is, there is no short answer.”

“Everyone here is committed to what Bear State stands for. The freedom, the right of expression, the ability to live and grow and better yourself. Also the responsibility that comes with it. Everyone in this team has spent time in other areas, and we have all seen what happens when those things are taken for granted. Take your own Euro colony, for example. Look at how much you’ve given up, just to have some form of safety and security in your territories.”

“We haven’t given up…” Ian started, then stopped. A deep frown was spreading across his face as he looked down at the table, and Burrows left him to think it through. The fact that he was willing to consider the idea, without rejecting it out of hand, was a promising sign.

“I’ve only been up here for two weeks, to be honest. I’m not sure I understand what you are aiming at,” Ian finally replied.

“How do you get EVA certified at the Euro colony?”

“We have to do a training course, and get recertified every six months,” Ian promptly replied to Burrows’ question.

“And your training for suit leaks?”

“It’s a classroom demonstration, with a guy in a vacuum tank.” Ian frowned. “We don’t do it the way you guys tested me here.”

“And what did you learn from Pope stabbing holes in your suit?”

Ian was quiet for a while. Burrows could almost see the thoughts running behind his grey eyes.

“I think I’m a lot more confident about it now than I was after the classroom lecture in Planckstadt.”

“Exactly. You could have died in the process, sure, but you didn’t - and now your confidence level is much higher than before.” Burrows sipped at his tea again. “How did you learn to handle a firearm?”

“You and Pope taught me.” Ian’s frown was deepening. “I guess the timing was pretty good too, if you look at what happened during the patrol.”

“We would have left you at Home One to build fish tanks if you messed up the gun practicals, trust me. How would you get the same training in the Euro colony?”

“You wouldn’t, unless you were part of the military forces. They don’t allow regular folks up here to have guns.”

“Perfectly reasonable, from your government’s point of view.” Burrows smiled as he nodded along. “Would they give you the space to build your own fish lab there, like we’ve given you at Home One?”

“Oh no, they already have hundreds of labs up, and the regulations for starting up a new one are…” Ian trailed off with a sigh, and just shook his head. “Okay, I get it. We have a lot of rules.”

“And implants too, which pay attention to everything you do, and log every area you visit.” Burrows pointed at Ian’s wrist. “Nothing you do is ever really unseen or unheard out there, is it? Some of your banking and government systems cannot even function without them.”

“When you put it like this, you make us sound just as bad as the Union.”

“If the Euro colonies were just as bad as the Union, Planckstadt would never have let you leave in the first place. You’re not at Union levels yet - but you’re on the same path, mark my words.” Burrows snorted. “Listen, the point I’m trying to make is simple: the Liberty Zones are free in a way that you and people from the Union and even people from the NorAm zones will never understand unless you experience it. Out here, we expect people to act like adults, and pay the price that comes with that responsibility. When you want the freedom to do something, you can do it here. When the time comes to pay the bill for that, then you have to pay it.”

“So when you ask me if my job here is just a cover story for the things we do as Rangers, I cannot give you a simple yes or no answer. I believe in the way of life up here. The work I do, the community I live in, the commitments I have as part of the CDM - those are all ingredients of the same soup. I believe in the opportunities we have to be free, and to make changes in this world. I believe that that liberty comes with a price - and that if I want that liberty, I have to be prepared to pay that price. That’s the only simple part of the answer. Every day, every week, every month. When that bill is due, I have to pay it.”

“So my job up here? That is part of the liberty. I pay for that liberty by doing my part when it is required. I serve when it is needed, I sacrifice for my community when it is necessary, and I will do anything in my power to protect that liberty,” Burrows continued. Ian listened mutely as Burrows locked eyes with him. “Sacrifice is part of the deal, Ian. We can’t get away from it. If we just take and give nothing back, we end up with dysfunctional societies. Look at the Union. Their people gave up freedom for security, they gave up questions for comfort, and what do they have now? They have surrendered all of their liberty to a government that treats them as disposable animals. Look at the Euro colonies. You have safety and security, comfortable little lives, and a backup plan and insurance for everything - and the moment you try to step out of those lines, the government steps on your neck.”

“I leave my wife and my unborn child behind to do dangerous things for my community, because those things are necessary. I don’t want to do them - but I have to, because I have a responsibility to pay that bill when it is due. I take risks - we all take risks - because we know that the things we want to protect and cherish are worth it. We pay that price, over and over again, every day we are out on the border. Every day we are out in a hostile environment that wants to kill us with cold and radiation and Union bullets. I put myself on the line to try and change things, because the things that I want to protect are worth fighting for.”

“So when you join the militia here and take up a gun? That’s a commitment with a price tag. When you join the Minutemen and become more actively involved with the defence and peace-keeping in your community - that’s another commitment, again, with a bigger price tag.” Burrows tapped on his Ranger patch again. “When the Ranger calls come in and Command needs us to do the dangerous work that no-one else can, it’s another commitment. War is coming to these lands, whether we want it or not. If we want to protect our way of life, we will have to pay that price. We can’t run now. I can’t run now. I can’t just take and take when it is easy, and then run away when it gets hard. It’s not who I am, and it’s not who I want to be.”

The galley was quiet around them when Burrows finally finished. The Exeter creaked and whispered to itself as it rolled over the dunes, a warm cocoon of heat and light against the cold night outside.

“I guess you weren’t joking about having no short answer,” Ian eventually ventured. The younger man studied his hands on the table in front of him, before finally looking up. “I’ve only been here for two weeks, and I feel like I still know nothing. What you’re saying makes sense, I’ve just never thought of it that way.”

“I know. It’s a lot to take in, and things are very different here.” Burrows nodded, taking the final sip of lukewarm tea from the cup. “I just want you to know what you are getting into now. We’re all going to be making sacrifices in this war, and we all have our own reasons for being prepared to do that - but you’re new, and an outsider, and for you it looks different.”

“Very different, yes,” Ian gave a soft laugh before shaking his head. “It’s a lot to unpack, to be honest. I really did not expect to get dropped in the deep end this soon after arriving.”

Burrows fished out the package containing the last Ranger patch, and put the patch on the table between them. The golden X in the middle was muted in the galley’s light.

“The patch is not the commitment, Ian. It’s just an outward sign of something you’ve decided in here.” Burrows tapped a finger on his chest, over his heart. “Putting the patch on won’t suddenly make you committed - and being committed doesn’t mean that you need a patch to prove it. Those are things you need to figure out for yourself. I just don’t want you to go into this blind.”

“It feels a bit blind though, after only two weeks. I haven’t even finished setting up the lab you guys gave me, and now this…” Ian trailed off, reaching for the patch but then stopping halfway. His hand settled on the tabletop instead, and curled into a fist.

“You can still leave. No-one here will hold it against you.” Burrows put the now-empty package back into his pocket, leaving the black patch on the table between them. “You can head back west, go back to Planckstadt, and sign up for a different adventure there. There’s a lot to explore on Mars that does not have to involve a war with the Union. The Mariner Valley is actually on my own bucket list to visit sometime. The NorAm teams are apparently doing amazing work out there with their domes, and I heard that they are always looking for capable people. You could definitely make a difference there too.”

“Why did you come here, actually? All those years ago, why didn’t you go to the Mariner Valley, or somewhere else?”

Burrows pointed at Ian’s wrist again, where the Euro implant was embedded under the skin.

“I wasn’t keen on being chipped like someone’s pet dog, to be honest. Plus, the more rules they have in a place, the less likely you are to make a real difference.” Burrows sat back and folded his arms across his chest, thinking back to his own arrival on Mars years ago. “The NorAm zones might seem different to your Euro colonies, but it’s just a different paint-job on the same rover model. In Planckstadt, you belong to the government - in the NorAm zones, you belong to some corporation. The only difference you make there, is to someone’s quarterly profit statement.”

Burrows thought back even further, to his own experiences in Africa, and the first time he had committed to making a difference. The private contracts, the training in Madagascar, the deployment to Inhaca. It had felt so easy and obvious back then. Everything was black and white, clear-cut, simple. Until people started dying, and relationships started falling apart, and people walked out because they could not understand - or did not want to - why he did the things he did. Why he was prepared to make those sacrifices, and keep making them.

Had it been easier, because he was ignorant?

Probably, yes. It is always easy to agree to something if you do not know what the full price is going to be, or if you thought you could somehow wriggle your way out of paying that full price eventually. Reality tended to be different though - and the wake-up calls were rarely soft or kind.

“So that whole idea, of working for someone else, didn’t sit too well with me.” Burrows continued with a shrug. “Some people want the stability of a nine-to-five job, and they pay for that stability by giving up other things. I’m not in that same boat. I don’t want to be a wage slave who just spends his life working and raising the next generation of wage slaves for the next generation of corpo managers to exploit. That’s not freedom, not by a long mile.”

“But Bear State also has rules though, right? You also need to follow government laws here, and rules inside Home One?” Ian cocked his head to the side after his question. “How is that different?”

“On the outside, no - there’s little difference. When we live in a community, we all end up being accountable to someone else in some way or form. What makes Bear State and most of the other Liberty Zones different, is how far it goes. It’s a spectrum of control: you have the Union on the one extreme, then you have the Euros and NorAm in the middle somewhere, and then us on the other side. We don’t operate without any laws or oversight, we just try to manage with as little of it as possible.”

“And you see that as real freedom, compared to what the other colonies offer?”

“I see it as an acceptable price to pay, for how I want to live my life, yes.” Burrows uncrossed his arms and sat forward over the table. The Ranger patch was coarse under his finger when he tapped at it. “Real freedom does not exist, not the way you are thinking of it. A place without laws and rules would be anarchy, and the only people who want that are the ones who don’t want to be held accountable for the dumb and selfish things they do. Real freedom does not mean freedom from consequences too. We all have to pay a price for what we want, always. This patch, for me, is part of that price. I get my freedom here, I get to raise a family without government interference, I get to build opportunities for them and for my community - and for that, I have to pay a price. I’m not paying the same price as the corpo wage-slave or the Union drone, sure, but I’m also not getting the same deal as them. I don’t want the same deal as them.”

Ian, who had sat back when Burrows leaned forward, was nodding along by the time Burrows finished. He had a faraway look in his eyes as he looked past Burrows and out into the forward section of the Exeter.

“I think I’m starting to see it, now. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone explaining it in those terms, and it feels really stupidly obvious now.”

“Different people have different views on it. I’m just sharing my perspective.” Burrows sat back again, leaving the patch on the table. “I don’t want you to just agree with me. I don’t want you to just make the same decision as me. I want you to think about what you want, I want you to think about where you want to go…”

“...and what the price will be,” Ian completed the sentence. He was nodding again, and his eyes were on the black patch. “It’s a lot to think about.”

“Keep the patch for now. Think about what we just discussed, and make your own decision when you’re ready.” Burrows reached forward and pushed the patch across the table until it was in front of Ian. “On Friday morning when we head out, you can join us, or you can give me back the patch. Like I said before, no-one will judge you if you want to step back. Everyone else here has skin in the game, and we all have our own reasons for doing this. You still have options back west. You can head back and start again.”

Ian finally picked the patch up and studied it. It suddenly looked tiny in his hands.

“How did you decide?” Ian looked up, eyes dark and troubled. “How did you know what the right choice was?”

“We never know what the right choice is, Ian, until we have to pay that price.” Burrows sighed, feeling the memories roiling in the back of his mind. Faces, places and snippets of conversations bubbled up from memory, and old pains flashed under the surface before sliding away into the murk again. “We make mistakes, we learn from them, and then we try to do better. That’s all we can do.”

Ian slowly reached up and pulled the Minuteman patch off his left arm, bringing both the patch and the scrap of blue Union fabric behind it to the tabletop in front of him. He made a neat lineup of the three pieces - the Minuteman patch, the blue scrap of EVA suit, and the black Ranger patch - and studied them intently for a while before finally speaking again.

“What makes us different from them, Jack? I shot at people I’ve never even met or spoken to. Pope shot those wounded guys after they had tried to run away from the rover.” Ian shrugged, a small gesture despite his size. “How are we better than them?”

“We are going to need a much longer rover trip if you want a full answer to that.” Burrows gave a sympathetic grin, and Ian matched it, if only for an instant. The rover swayed around them for a moment before settling again.

“We fight for different reasons, ultimately. The Union fights because they want the things they see before them. We fight because we want to protect the things behind us. A man who wants to be left alone to build his own world and live his own life is never going to be at peace with a man who always wants more. More possessions, more control, more power. We are fundamentally different societies, and our values are not compatible.” Burrows spread his hands to indicate the rover around them. “So now we are forced to take up arms, sacrifice our time and our lives, and put great strain on our loved ones - just because we want to be left alone.”

“No-one in this rover wants to be here, I can promise you that. I have a pregnant wife back home, I sure as Hell don’t want to be risking my neck out here when my family needs me back home.” Burrows twisted around to point at the other men in the forward compartment of the Exeter. “Dixon is an artist, and loves cooking. He wants to open a bistro one day. I know he doesn’t want to be here. Reyn has a wife, and writes books for children in his spare time, so he can read them to his own kids one day. He doesn’t want to be here.”

“Pope is the only one who maybe wants to be here - and that’s only because the Union took his family, and he wants them back. If his wife and kids showed up at the Home One gates tomorrow, Pope would never leave the crater again. He’d happily spend the rest of his life mining and building toys for his kids.” Burrows turned back to Ian. “But Pope will also happily kill anyone who gets in his way right now, because to him, that is part of the price he has to pay to get back what he wants. Reyn will smile and nod, and then shank you with a screwdriver if you threaten him or his wife. He’s done worse as well. Cross Dixon, and he’ll use his tech wizardry to corrupt your suit eOX and trick your rover into venting itself before you can even smell his cologne.”

“And you’ll do the same, if someone got in your way.” Ian’s statement made it clear that he did not consider it a question at all.

“Yes. I will. Because what I am trying to protect, is worth fighting for. Even if it means I don’t come back.” Burrows shrugged one last time before taking his teacup and getting up. “I like to think that makes us different from the Union, but you’ll have to make up your own mind about that.”

“It’s a lot to think about in two days.”

“It is, yes. It definitely is. Talk to the people in Home One, listen to their stories. Talk to your Samantha as well.” Burrows got a fresh pot of tea going before rinsing out his mug. His watch showed that they still had another eight hours to go before reaching Home One again. “Everyone has their own story, and their own reasons. Pay attention to those. Maybe you see yourself fitting into those stories in the future. Maybe not. You’re the only one who can make that decision in the end.”

“That’s your real freedom, isn’t it.” Ian looked up at Burrows as he put the Minuteman patch, with its blue backing, back on his left arm. The Ranger patch went into a chest pocket. “Your freedom to choose.”

“Yes.” Burrows smiled at the younger man. “My freedom to choose, and pay the price for it.”

Next chapter: TBC