Defying Mars (The Saving Mars Series) - By Cidney Swanson Page 0,12
hearing what I’m hearing?”
“Reckon they’re glad to see us,” said Crusty, shrugging off the last of his own harness.
Jessamyn stood and experienced a momentary disorientation—her body had reassumed its Mars weight. She felt as if she were literally floating.
“Hmmph,” grunted Crusty, responding to his body’s lack of weight as he stood. “Guess we could’ve stood a few more adjustments to ship’s gravity.”
Jess giggled to see the bounce in Crusty’s step. “You’re walking like a little child.”
“You were young a whole lot more recently than I was, kid,” replied the mechanic.
The buoyancy of her stride matched perfectly the buzzing sort of anticipation she felt thinking of her parents waiting for her just outside. Holy Ares, she’d missed them.
Making no attempt to regulate her own bouncing stride, Jess followed Crusty down into the bowels of the ship, from which they emerged onto the Marsian plain minutes later. Jess’s first thought was how dimly lit her world appeared in comparison to Earth. Her second was that she had underestimated the number of people who had been cheering over the comm. It looked to her as if half of New Houston had suited up for the occasion—several thousand helmeted heads were raised to greet the returning Mars Raiders.
The noise outside thundered and Jess had to adjust the volume on her helmet receiver. Forcing herself to hold her gloved hands down at her sides, Jess resisted a momentary urge to tear off her helmet and run in the opposite direction. Like all Mars-children, she’d read about crazy settlers who had done just that early in Mars’s colonization. She couldn’t remember what got them first—the lack of human-friendly air pressure or the lack of breathable air. Shuddering, she made herself stand still and smile at the gathered crowd.
Just look for Mom and Dad, she told herself.
Many of the gathered throng had placed three blue marks upon their helmets, just above their eyes. Jess only had a moment to ask herself what it might signify before she noticed Mei Lo’s diminutive form before her. The Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial held out a glove-protected hand, and Jess reached to grasp it in a clumsy handshake. A spattering of flashes marked the moment and Jess heard Crusty’s grunt of annoyance—the two were still connected by ship’s comm. An interruptive beep-beep informed her of the Secretary’s incoming voice over her comm.
“Welcome home, Pilot Jaarda, Payload Specialist Crustegard,” said Mars’s leader.
“It’s good to be back, Madam Secretary,” replied Crusty.
Jessamyn gave a moment’s attention to the Secretary, but then returned to her search for her parents. They had to be here. Why hadn’t they been allowed up front where she could find them?
“Be nice if the crowd could keep it down already,” mumbled Crusty. “They’re givin’ me a headache the size of Olympus Mons.”
Jess smiled at her cranky crewmate’s remark, causing another series of flashes.
“Ain’t gonna get your face with all that light bouncing off of your helmet,” Crusty grunted. “Guess we’d best get used to it, though.”
A tall woman approached the Secretary, Jess, and Crusty and began angling the three into posed stances.
“Crusty and Jessamyn,” said Mei Lo, “I’d like you to meet my new events coordinator, Nessa Niedermaier.”
Another helmet beep-beep. “If I could just have the two of you stand to either side of the Secretary?” asked the events coordinator.
And so, rather than the homecoming Jessamyn had imagined where she rushed into the arms of her mom and dad, she found herself being pushed, pulled, and tugged into half-an-hour’s worth of staged photographs, punctuated by Crusty’s salient grousing.
During this time, Mei Lo spoke a few brief words to the crowd in praise of the raiders and then encouraged everyone to return home, as the crew of the Galleon would be entering Mars Colonial Command for debriefing and a health check.
“And as much as I’d love to invite all of you inside,” said Mei Lo, “I’m afraid the building would explode. We’ll have announcements for the week’s festivities on the evening news brief.”
Jessamyn, still craning her head for any sign of her parents, heard the Secretary’s quiet sigh as she switched to communicate to the raiders in private. “I think that went well. We certainly didn’t anticipate this kind of turnout, though. A harbinger for the days to come, I suppose. If you’ll both follow me.”
“Madam Secretary,” said Jessamyn, “I was hoping to—that is, um …” She felt her face coloring. How did a Mars Raider tell the planet’s CEO that she just wanted a minute with her