The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Read Online Free PDF Page B

families. More will be sent as it can be compiled. As for the
history since the Great Tragedy, there is a lot to explain, and I
expect it will be difficult.
    “To begin, I expect you will not be surprised that
the United Nations Martian Affairs Council was disbanded back in
2072, seven years after the tragedy. The General Assembly is having
an emergency meeting later today to vote on its re-inception,
though I expect a new UNMAC will have quite a different focus than
the original.”
    She takes a deep breath as if to gather herself
before continuing.
    “I have seen your reports on what you have gathered
from your end about the Disc Drones’ role in the disaster. The
intelligence we were able to acquire—what is in the official
file—has only recently been declassified. However, while our
information corroborates your report that the Discs were indeed
responsible for firing the Ares’ Shield weapons platform, from our
perspective it did appear that the enemy had critically breached
several high-threat labs. What we failed to see was how effectively
colonial ground resistance had been in deflecting some of the
inbound nuclear devices. Once direct contact with our orbital
facilities and satellites was severed, all we had was long-range
telescopes, and analysis at the time indicated the devastation to
be as thorough as it was designed to be. When the initial signals
from a painfully few survivors went silent, and years of attempts
at contact met with no response, our hopes died.”
    She pauses again, looks down at her hands.
    “What you do not know is how complete the
devastation was beyond the surface of Mars. Not only were Ares
Station and Phobos Dock totally lost, but no fewer than twelve
ships in dock and entering orbit were destroyed with all hands. We
estimated orbital casualties at over thirty-two hundred souls. This
does not include personnel sent into orbit from your bases in
rescue attempts—we intercepted communications indicating that
several of those craft were destroyed or damaged by enemy fire, but
we cannot give you an accurate accounting due to interference from
the nuclear detonations.
    “Only six transport shuttles managed to slingshot
back homeward, a maneuver they had to calculate and initiate under
fire and without refuel or resupply. Two of these failed to
course-correct accurately, and were lost to deep space—we could
only communicate with them helplessly while their life support ran
out. A third ship expired before reaching home. Five hundred and
forty nine people died of suffocation in the cold of the void. But
that is not the worst of it.
    “We celebrated the miracle that three shuttles had
made it back to us against all odds. What we didn’t know was that
two of those ships had Discs attached to their hulls, waiting to
strike. They used our survivor ships as gun platforms, giving us
the horrible choice of firing on those who had beaten the odds—the
only apparent survivors of the Martian tragedy… The first volley
from the lead ship home destroyed the orbital docks as well as the
rescue shuttles sent to meet it. The Disc attached then crippled
its host vessel before engaging our defensive satellites, likely a
strategy to keep us occupied while the next ship moved into range.
We had hoped that there was only one compromised ship, so we gave
the pilots the go-ahead to approach. Our hope cost us critical
damage to the International Space Station, before the brave pilots
expended the fuel they had saved for docking to steer away. The
attached Disc destroyed itself and the ship when it realized it
could no longer effectively strike other targets. The final
ship—it’s pilots assuming it was also compromised—changed course
into a higher orbit to keep any Disc attached out of firing range
of critical targets, expending the last of its fuel. Upon satellite
examination, no Disc was detected—the ship was clean. But our
orbital resources had all been crippled or destroyed, and we had
nothing