Chapter 21 : Spongelands

Location : Spongelands outside Eagle City, Meridiani Planum, Mars
Era by Mars Calendar : Sol Solis 15th Kanya MY183
Era by Earth Calendar : Thursday 16th March 2299CE

Mark watched Varija lay out her purchases on the sponge ground cover under the tree.

<What is the plan?>

<I can't get through to the city using the Manties' Mesh. All my messages are getting blocked. So I am creating my own node Mesh.>

She used the laser cutter to cut the gossamer nano-fabric, slicing the fabric in a slanted square wave pattern. The cuts were quick and precise in a way that only someone who had been enhanced with high level Tarka could achieve. Cutting with the same pattern over and over again she produced notched strips that looked like a series of overlapping italic plus symbols.

<My first plan was to use parachutes to spread the nodes. I was going to use a jerry-rigged compressed air cannon to launch them. But then I had a better idea.>

<What was that?>

<Watch and learn.> She laid the strips on top of each other, then made a series of diagonal cuts from the notches on one side to the notches on the other. She ended up with a collection of wonky, spiky X' shapes.

<How did you get the strips to line so perfectly?>

<It is smart fabric, I told it to line up. The grid points embedded in the fabric also help with the accuracy of the cuts.>

She connected a silver cylinder with a yellow dot to one leg. <Feedstock. I could have made do without it, but it makes things easier.> She connected a silver cylinder with a blue dot to one leg. <Water. Again it makes things a little easier.>

She removed the sewing kit from her bag and fished out something that resembled a stapler. She used the 'stapler' on one of the X' shapes joining the edges together until she had a sack. It was quick, and looked like using a zipper. The edges almost joined themselves. She removed a small cylinder from her leg. <A valve, I just printed it from the feedstock. A Mesh node is embedded in it.>

She inserted the valve into a corner of the nano-fabric sack then used another tool from the sewing kit to seal the valve to the sack. She inserted a tube from her leg into the valve and inflated it into an octahedron that started to rise up into the air. Varija grabbed it and pushed it past the overhang of the sponge tree letting it escape into the butterscotch sky.

<What did you use to use to inflate the balloons with?> Mark asked.

<Hydrogen. I electrolyzed the water. However even this nano-fabric will have a hard time containing hydrogen. It's going to leak, but they will last just long enough.>

She was already starting on the next balloon. Every fifth balloon she inflated and had him push past the overhang, releasing it to the sky. The others she stowed still deflated in her bag.

<Can't you hack our way through their fire wall to the city Mesh.>

<Someone's physically altered the nodes near the border. It should have been obvious from the change in communication patterns. I am not sure what would make me angrier, if no one noticed or if no one told me because they didn't want to distract me from the negotiations with Earth, > she sent.

<What about a radio broadcast? Or a satellite link?>

<Too insecure, plus it will tell the Manties, exactly where we are, > she sent. She turned her head and displayed an animated wry smile. <I have been spending years bridging the gap between the first and second-waves. I worked so hard to improve relations and now things are worse than ever.>

<Why don't we just T-jump to the free corridor and hitch a ride back with the bubble farm workers.>

<It would be hard to come up with a believable cover story about how we got there, plus there is a lot of CCTV coverage of the corridor. If things don't go as planned with this approach I might consider it providing we can mitigate some of the issues, but at the moment I am putting my faith in this plan.>

The cable pull altered its sound. People were using it to travel. He could tell Varija had heard it too.

<We are too close to the cable pull, > warned Mark.

She packed up everything in her bag and they moved deeper inside the cave underneath the sponge tree. They worked their way through the twisting passages that interpenetrated the sponge forest as the walls changed from blue to green to yellow then mauve. In a few places Varija used the spike she had used on Hugo to widen the passage, in other places they had to backtrack. Finally they broke through to open air again. Varija inflated a few balloons and released them.

They continued over the sponge ground cover until they reached a pipeline. After scaling one of the pylons they travelled along the pipeline for several kilometers. Varija filled and released balloons without breaking stride. All too soon however they felt the vibration of feet, not their own, striking the pipeline and they were forced to abandon it.

They ventured into the sponge forest again and into the strange network of pores and channels that penetrated the sponge. They continued onwards until they came to a space that was open to the sky.

Varija unpacked her bag and finished constructing her balloons, releasing about ten as she went. <I am varying the amount of hydrogen in each balloon, which should give me a decent spread. I need to build a series of nodes that bypass the compromised nodes on the border. If possible I would like a real time link with people in the city. I am getting quite close. A lot of the nodes are reporting back on their progress.>

<Then what?>

<Extraction.>

<And what are you going to about the Manties?> asked Mark

<Try to unruffle their feathers. Make sure they get what I promised them. Start the long process of rebuilding trust. It is going to take a long time.>

<What if they cut off the city?>

<Then the city and the sponge lands are going to be at each other's throats. In the normal course of events a large section of the city population will have to go into suspension. Some of the Purists with low-level or mid-level Tarka will die. In the chaos some people might even go Zee. The city will have to be evacuated and the capital relocated. The government of the entire planet would be in disarray. The rescue package for the outer colonies, that I spent the last three months putting together, will be in jeopardy. If it fails, not only will tens of thousands of people die and the outer colonies be crippled, the Earth government will cast the blame on the Areos government since it was Martian independence that interrupted supply to the outer colonies in the first place, > she sent.

<But you're not going to let that happen.>

<Even if I transport in a few tons of ice to the bubble farms, making the city no longer dependent on the sponge lands for O2, no one on either side will be in a forgiving mood. No government can afford to be held to ransom that way. Things could get ugly very quickly. No, we better fix this before the council of franchises pulls the trigger.>

<Couldn't they get the numbers they need at any time? For all we know they could be voting right now, > asked Mark.

<Enough talking about things we cannot change. It's time I taught you how to fight armored foes. There is no guarantee that this extraction will be uneventful. >

<I am guessing that Manties count as armored.>

<With this newer tougher skin, Yes, > affirmed Varija.

Varija spun around slicing a section off a small sponge outcrop with something that projected out of her heel. <You are equipped with four retractable nano-blades, one in each limb. Although you can slice something as soft as sponge, the preferred attack mode for sturdier targets is a stabbing motion. The blades are generally used to deliver offensive tarka (usually either tranq, lock down or disruption tarka). They are hollow to facilitate this.> Varija demonstrated by skewering another sponge growth, it melted, eaten away from the inside.

<You also have three tick launchers. One in each palm and one in your head.> She raised her hands and two more sponge shapes at the far end of the clearing melted.

<Ticks are far heaver missiles than bee-stings, they are more expensive to print and you're going to run out of feedstock for them far quicker, which is why you have only three of them as opposed to ten bee-sting launchers. Ticks can burn and drill their way through armor.> Varija sent a data stream with a list of recommended target areas for the XMEET body type, plus a list of recommended payloads for each area and how much damage to expect and how long it would take for the damage to occur. The delays were significant. Unsurprisingly the most effective way to take down a XMEET was to hit them with a nano-blade between the shoulder blades to deliver lock down tarka. Exactly how Varija took down Hugo.

Varija sent a second data packet this time describing how to take down an Areos body type.

<Are you expecting to fight Areos types?> asked Mark.

<It is unlikely, but not impossible. A third of first-wavers have Areos bodies. However almost all of those live in the city, not the sponge lands, and if you think the ill feeling between the first and second-wavers is bad, it's nothing to the hatred between XMEET first-wavers and Areos first-wavers. Many Manties consider the Gum-balls, as they call them, to be traitors to their own kind.>

Looking through the specs for the XMEET and Areos bodies, Mark was startled by something. <Our brains are in our chests?>

<Of course. Where did you expect them to be?> she asked.

<Makes sense. What would happen if a Himura was used on a Manty or an Areos?> Mark felt an immediate chill from Varija.

<I have told you more than once you are never to fire a Himura at a human being.>

<Sorry to bring it up. I was just wondering what other weapons we might face in a firefight.> Mark sent defensively.

<You're unlikely to find a Himura on Mars. There is a list of the more common weapons.> Varija send him a list that mostly contained slug throwers of various calibers and some lasers. <To answer your question a Himura shell would most likely go straight through an Areos or an old style XMEET without doing any more damage than a similar sized slug. Someone with an upgraded XMEET body however would be killed instantly as their skin is just tough enough to trigger the shell's payload. Now defend yourself, we are about to spar.>

An hour later Varija finally called a halt. For most of the time, Mark tried desperately to prevent Varija killing' him. He had been hit with her palm hard enough, and frequently enough, that he was sure she had cracked something. He was equally sure that every time that he had touched her, she had let him. His body was covered in paint' rounds fired by her tick launchers. The paint' was actually his own chromophores registering her hits'.

Varija walked up to Mark and kissed' him. It was quite strange kissing without lips. That area of the face was soft and very sensitive, but also smooth.

<Do you want to try out some of your other equipment?>

They both sat on the soft spongy surface. Varija lifted Mark's left leg and straddled his right pushing their groins together, there was a click then Mark felt a sense of freedom and something uncoiled. He flexed his cock and felt it move.

<Its prehensile!> he sent. <They're prehensile.> he sent as he looked down and he saw had more than one.

<Double the fun.>

He experimented, flexing, curling and twisting his two cocks.

<Are you going to play with those all day or are you going to play with me?>

He traced the skin of her groin with his new appendages and two lips unsealed themselves. He traced the lips with loving care.

<That's more like it.>

He inserted his tips into her lips, teasing and flicking. He forced himself inside her uncoiling and straightening. She was warm and wet. He seemed to flow deeper and deeper inside her. She squeezed and milked him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight giving him another of those strange no lip kisses while he wiggled and twisted and squirmed inside her.

Varija reached down and touched something sensitive between his two cocks. <Press this against my clit, > she commanded.

Mark arched up forcing himself as far inside her as he could go. He felt himself stretched and the sensitive tip of his third cock rubbed against something wet hard and mobile. He twisted and flicked her clit, then lapped at her little nub as if it was a tongue. She tightened and squeezed around his cocks. She vibrated and rubbed around the sensitive tips of his cocks.

As his orgasm crested he grabbed her hips and emptied himself explosively deep inside her. He pressed her against his body while his cocks spasmed and squirted.

<I actually had alien tentacle sex. I didn't even know that was on my bucket list, > sent Mark after the waves of his orgasm subsided.