The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [67]
“Thank you again for agreeing to show me your hometown,” Brooks said as she turned to face the Martian Colonies’ official representative to the Coalition Council. “It’s really very gracious of you—particularly after I ambushed you right before we left Earth.”
He smiled beneficently. “I’m more than happy to help a journalist who doesn’t seem hell-bent on making us all look like a bunch of ignorant hicks,” he said.
And it probably doesn’t hurt that he knows that Mars will be my last stop in the Sol system for the foreseeable future, she thought as she paused to contemplate the next leg of her outbound “frontier tour” with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. He had to know as well as she did that the war correspondent beat she was heading out to cover could well take her on a one-way journey.
“I just want to write an honest account of how people are dealing with this Romulan conflict,” she said as she looked back toward the hazy sunrise, which now illuminated the upper reaches of the approaching Mariner Valley’s eastern extremity with a clarity she had never seen before, even in the high-definition holopics taken by aerial drones. “I intend to report from the home front all the way to the farthest-flung human settlements I can reach.”
And that’s because people need to know everything they can about whatever threat these Romulans really pose, she thought. Not to scare them away from deep space the way Naquase would, or send them packing back to Earth to hide under the bed. But to show them there’s nothing out there that we can’t find a way to deal with.
Or maybe even come to terms with.
“I’m curious,” he said. “Why did you pick Mars instead of the Luna colonies?”
The question surprised her. “Mars always seemed like the best offEarth starting place I could ask for to kick off a frontier tour like this one.”
“But why? I mean, Luna seems like a much rougher place than Mars, at least as frontiers go. At least Mars has an atmosphere, even if you can’t quite breathe it yet.”
Brooks reluctantly turned away from the vast, rapidly approaching canyon, facing him again. “I’ll grant you that your chances of surviving a rip in your suit are marginally better any place where there’s no hard vacuum waiting to boil your blood in your veins. On the other hand, Luna can never lull you into a false sense of security because it looks so much like Wyoming or New Mexico.”
“True enough,” he said. “But you go outside the Moon habs with a bad suit, it’ll all be over pretty darned fast.”
She nodded. “Also true. But on Luna you’re never more than a few hours away from the best medical care Earth has to offer, assuming that whatever mishap you’ve had doesn’t kill you outright. Besides, an airless place like Luna can’t whip up a funnel cloud that picks up enough iron-oxide dust to generate a high-voltage static charge. I saw one of those things discharge directly into a man once during a sudden windstorm near Sagan Station. It hit him like a Jovian lightning bolt. His suit’s electronics failed on the spot, and his helmet blew out like it was made of papier mâché. The only difference between dying that way and ripping your suit open in the Tycho crater is how long it takes you to die.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, his dusky features taking on a pensive cast.
Not eager to absorb anybody’s unsolicited sympathy, she continued with her original point. “Besides, I’ve visited the New Berlin colony a