The God Mars Book One: CROATOAN Read Online Free PDF

somehow “stuck” in
the moment, unable to resolve the scenario, unable to plan beyond
it. Or maybe something happened after, something that also explains
what happened to Cal Copeland. (Maybe MAI really doesn’t know what
happened to Cal.)
    “The most likely conclusion is that it was whoever
was behind all of the Disc attacks since ’49. And we still don’t
know who that was. But they had to have the resources to build and
place the drones on planet. And they had to have a way to access
the colony systems to simulate multiple site breaches. And detailed intel on the Shield in order to hack it.
    “The Ares’ Shield platform had only been activated a
month prior, reluctantly placed in orbit by UNMAC to appease the
growing popular fear that an unstoppable nanotech plague might get
loose and kill all life. But no one underestimated how dangerous
the platform was. Security for the project was extreme . We
were agreeing to point nuclear weapons at ourselves. We had to
trust that the system was redundantly safe, that no one could use
it against us, unless the worst did happen and it was absolutely
necessary to protect Earth and we were already as good as
dead.”
    “WHY DID YOU MAKE THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE WEAPONS
PLATFORM COULD NOT BE TURNED AGAINST YOU?”
    Now the machine almost sounds prosecutorial. I watch
myself trying to fumble for an answer—a reasonable
answer—especially given my feelings regarding the placing of the
platform.
    “ I would not have made that assumption, MAI,”
I qualified my answer, but I do sound beyond angry, quickly losing
any professionalism I’m hanging onto, thinking about the thousands
and thousands that must be dead because of the stupidity that comes
with fear. “I’m a soldier. I expect things to go wrong. I expect
vulnerabilities to be exploited by my enemies.”
    “YOUR ASSESSMENT IS LOGICALLY SOUND,” it tells me
after a fraction of a second’s delay.
    “But you want to know why other people—the
ones that pushed for placing the Shield—assumed it could not be
purposefully turned against us?”
    “PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR ANALYSIS.”
    I watch Matthew’s eyebrows go halfway up his
forehead. Staley is mesmerized. The AI does sound like it’s
desperate for some kind of understanding.
    “I expect it was too big, too unimaginable. Tens of
thousands of lives were under that gun. The idea that someone would
intentionally burn the whole planet, kill everyone … No one
considered—or wanted to consider—that anyone was fanatical
enough to commit planetary genocide, simply given the means.
    “The Ecos were always careful with human life, even
in their greatest militancy. And they were beginning to become
mainstream, to move away from violence into diplomacy and
democratic politics. They might still have a few hardcore holdouts,
isolated fanatics, but whoever pulled this off was big and
well-coordinated. And something that big and that scary should have shown up on the radar. Intel should have picked
up something . But there was no one we saw with any apparent
motive for genocide.
    “Even if the Discs—and whoever was behind them—could
be considered a threat to the entire Martian project, genocide
didn’t fit with their established methods: The drones were always
selective with their attacks, only targeting labs and the military.
They didn’t target the colony biospheres. And they never touched
the ETE terra-forming stations, even when the embattled labs moved
their hottest research there for protection.”
    “THE DISCS DID INITIATE THE BOMBARDMENT.”
    “Yes,” I admitted, feeling the foolishness of the
defense I just made, even though I’d never had much faith in it.
“So either they were trying to eliminate everyone on Mars, or—if
they were being run by one of the national or corporate
players on-planet—they were counting on their own interest’s
countermeasures to spare them.”
    Then I consider the obvious next question:
    “Who else has survived,