Jody and I were three months out of the service when the first shots were fired. The colonists were growing more and more irate each day. Negotiations were breaking down. The settlements on Mars had to be evacuated and re-located to one of the orbital stations. Legislators passed the long-delayed, twice-cancelled Martian Terraforming Initiative.

The first stage of the Initiative: shoot huge chunks of ice into the planet’s surface. The second stage: seed crystals and bio-engineered lichens to be sent down once the barrage stopped. Stage three: rebuild the domes. The settlers could return and start over or cash in their reparation certificates and book a flight to some other place, far from the red planet and their former lives.

But the settlers wouldn’t give up their homes. Everyone knew it was coming. Not if but when. Nobody knew how it would happen, save for one. Someone on Phobos, a sympathizer to the Martian plight. Someone with the ways and means to reprog one of the mass drivers on the moon’s surface, sending a bucket of regolith racing along magnetic rails past escape velocity. The UN orbital platform called for assistance but there was no one within range that could help. Evacuation measures for the thousands of personnel required days of preparation, not hours. What remained after the impact drifted through space, a mangled skeleton of steel and corpses.

We never found out the person’s name. The entire moon was bombarded in retaliation. Nothing survived. No one could have survived. When the Martians rose up and took over the domes the authorities activated reservists on Deimos. Any and all civilians were packed up and sent to Agra Station. Jody and I were working on Deimos, technical stuff. Hours after the base was activated we were on the phone with our new superiors and suiting up for combat. Pacification. Whatever.

Not everyone on Mars was part of the uprising. Many had no choice, others were held against their will. The port was shut down, the armory and police station was taken over by angry mobs. What little authority there was either turned insurgent, was captured or was killed in very bloody, very public displays. Transmissions from the surface were garbled and non-specific about the exact nature of the violence.

Jody thought it sounded a bit too one-sided and I agreed. Mars was a backwater of geodesic domes and red dust. Life was hard. The “red rush” turned to a trickle once people found out that there was nothing down there. Many of the homesteaders were stuck, having exhausted their bank accounts to buy a plot and make the ten-month journey. The place attracted a peacekeeping force from the worst the system had to offer. Thuggish, brutal and dull-witted. Crime was rampant. Black marketeers smuggled in weapons and drugs.  The Martian cops looked the other way. It was like Earth’s gangland, back in the early 20th.

I remember talking to Jody on the flight from Deimos to one of the cruisers in orbit. The Medusa was an ugly, massive thing, a titanium frame from which various modules hung like ornaments on a dead fir tree. It wasn’t so much armored as it was shielded against radiation, but the military didn’t worry too much about their cruisers being destroyed. Her weapons were her defense systems; clusters of missile racks designed to down incoming projectiles and railguns to punch holes in stationary targets. Medusa’s main weapons were soldiers shipped to her from Deimos.

She was eighteen and beautiful when we met. Six years later she was still a vision, all kinky black hair and coffee-colored skin. I remember the mess hall on Deimos. She was the object of desire by every warm-blooded trooper and she sat next to me. We barely touched our food and spent the whole hour talking. She had a background in planetary geophysics from some tiny school outside of Reykjavik and I was a math nerd from CalTech. I told her that she didn’t look Icelandic and her laugh was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

Her hand on mine, imagining the heat of her skin through her gloves. She squeezed and bumped her helmet against mine, shutting her eyes tight and then opening them again. I did the same. We called it cat kissing, though I forget the reason why. Our shuttle began the painfully slow docking maneuvers with the Medusa.

We passed the time in silence.

Orientation started the moment our bodies moved from the shuttle into the Medusa’s docking module. An officer helped us to our barracks and we settled into life in free-fall above Mars. There were three settlements in the area where we were to be deployed. The entire place was falling apart and our job was to preserve order, re-capture the port and evacuate the surface. A police mission, and one of the worst kinds. We didn’t know who was a good guy or a bad guy. We were squaring off against an organized criminal syndicate that didn’t want the current situation to change. And to top it off, most of the grunts heading planet-side, including Jody and I, were reservists.

The railgun platforms were off our starboard side, dwarfing our fragile-looking cruiser. I imagined the asteroids hurtling through space into the atmosphere, heating up and breaking apart into pieces before striking the surface. Ice and rock blasting huge craters into the planet and sending up cascades of Martian soil. Even if the domes survived the impacts, the solar collectors would be useless in the gloom that would cover the planet. It would be years before re-settlement could occur.

Our dropship landed about twenty miles outside the nearest dome. There were sixteen of us, men and women from Deimos and one of the Earth orbitals where the Medusa was docked. All of us in our helmets and pressure suits. We carried modified versions of our standard rifles and sidearms, all retro-fitted for use on the Martian surface. The ceramic plates and kevlar joint protection on our suits were bulky but not too heavy on the light gravity. We strapped into our half-track troop carrier and rumbled off. The dropship could be re-purposed as an impromptu shelter should one be needed but other than that it was just useless garbage littering the surface. The rover and our supplies for the mission were the only things of any immediate value.

The ground was rocky and treacherous but our rover made good time and within an hour we were within sight of the settlement. A massive dome dominated the city, with tunnels spreading out in a radial pattern to connect to smaller domes. Like an iceberg, the settlement was bigger below than it appeared above and I dreaded the inevitable excursion into the Martian underground. We explored it thoroughly in our training simulations and the close-quarters fighting proved difficult in our suits. The insurgent force of native Martian would use guerilla tactics and light protection. They’d have speed and stealth and knowledge of the area on their side. In the last simulation I’d been killed, wedged into a tight column as we passed through a tunnel. An improvised explosive had gone off next to my head and the explosion and resulting collapse of the tunnel took out a third of us.

The corporal, Baenziger, unpacked a drone flier to survey the area before we went in. He threw the tiny, wedge-shaped robot into the air and it took off into the red sky buzzing like a dragonfly. He watched the drone’s progress through a viewer that looked like a pair of binoculars strapped to his helmet.

“Area’s clear.” he said. His voice sounded tinny and distant in my ears. We checked our weapons and communications gear, loaded up our HUD maps of the settlement and went into the city.

Command told us to patrol the area and assess the current situation. Intelligence from the planet was sparse and unreliable and our first task was to restore surface-to-space communications. The nearest relay was about two klicks into the city. We’d go there first.

The dome was a ghost town. Settlers were locked away or hiding underground while the insurgents ran wild. We’d hear the occasional burst of gunfire off in the distance and the streets were littered with debris from explosions and collapsed buildings. Interior pressure was normal but we’d keep our helmets on until told otherwise. The domes were fantastically strong but one blowout and our ear drums could rupture. I saw a grey-spotted dog climbing over the ruins of a collapsed monorail track and I smiled for a bit, remembering my own dog back on Earth. Jody caught me and smiled back before adopting a no-nonsense squint, like in the recruitment videos. I stifled a laugh. Sergeant Vera gave us a hand signal to stop and spread out to either side of the mono track. We continued the search.

Weapons ready, we approached the relay station. A cluster of antennae and dishes pointed at the sky. No visible damage, a good sign. The place was deserted and we went to work once the station was secured. Weapons were stowed while Price and Beckham went to work on the guts of the relay. Jody and I stayed put, rifles at the ready.

I saw the dog again. It had followed us to the relay, a stray pet seeking food or affection.   I watched it pad across the broken concrete, watching us watch it. Its dirty white fur was wiry and it held its head low, frightened and more than a bit confused.

It should have occurred to one of us that something was wrong. The was but one of several communications relays scattered across the city but it was functional. The place wasn’t occupied, the equipment wasn’t damaged. I broke off a piece of an energy bar and held it out to the dog, taking a few steps forward. My rifle slung off my shoulder. My other hand outstretched to calm the dog down. It whined and padded away, fear over-riding any other desires. I turned to head back inside when it happened. The pressure wave knocked me out of the entrance and onto my back. My suit absorbed the shock but knocked the breath out of me. The blast sent fragments of metal and concrete raining down and I could see black smoke pouring out from inside. Something heavy was on my legs and I was pinned to the street, helpless. A piece of the wall, some heavy cinderblocks. I lay there in a panic, my arm was stuck as well and I felt the hard outline of my rifle against my back. I couldn’t move. My weapons were out of reach. The only thing that worked was my communicator. I gasped out a call for help. Nothing but static.

Hours passed. The grey-spotted dog watched me from behind the rubble but never came closer than a few meters. At some point I heard voices and saw people gathered around me as I slipped in and out of consciousness. My mouth was dry and my body felt cold and stiff. The group of people unearthed me from the wreckage and loaded me onto the flatbed of a small truck. I watched the ribbed dome of the sky pass overhead and tried to keep my eyes open. When I slept I dreamt of Jody’s hand holding my own.

My injuries were minor and I recovered quickly once I had rest and some fluids pumped back into my body. Another team heard my distress call and came to my rescue.

I asked about the other members of my squad.

They told me to get some more rest. I’d be shuttled back to the Medusa for my debriefing. The spaceport was back under control. It was over. The Battle of Mars Colony lasted less than a week. My own part lasted a single day. By the time I was fully recovered it was over and there was nothing to do but move out the remaining colonists, a job for someone else.

The relay had been booby-trapped with explosives set to go off as soon as it was powered up. My team had unwittingly triggered the blast and everyone inside was killed or maimed. I asked about Jody and the debriefing officer’s eyes looked down at his feet for a moment. I felt the tears in my eyes and I knew.

“We’ll take you to her room.” was all he said. Her room? That meant she was alive. I blinked away the tears and followed a med-tech up the corridor, pulling myself along the handholds.

They wouldn’t let me inside. I watched her unconscious body through a window. She was strapped down to a bed. Tubes ran into her throat and chest and some kind of hard plastic shell covered her torso. It was studded with lights and displays and wired to a computer console. Her head was shaved and the side of her face visible from my vantage point was layered in gauze. When I saw what was left of her lower body I began to cry.

I visited her every day that I could. Baenziger and Price survived but neither one was fit for active duty. Baenziger’s left arm terminated at the shoulder. They were fabricating a cybernetic device to take its place. Price was blinded by shrapnel and suffered damage to his throat. He now spoke with the help of an artificial larynx, his once-rich baritone voice replaced by a synthesized facsimile. The expressed their condolences as best they could.

The counselor assigned to me was courteous and efficient. I signed some forms, gave statements and prepared to return to Earth. There was nothing left for me here. The counselor pushed a tablet over to me.

“There’s one last thing. Private Collier. You and she were close, yes?”

I nodded.

“Were you aware that she made you her sole beneficiary?”

Jody had no family in the system and her closest next-of-kin was an elderly relative in the final stages of some debilitating illness. I was in the same boat, minus the living grandparent. We made the decision while we were active in the service.

I nodded again and looked down at the tablet.

“Private Collier will not recover in her current state. Her body is too badly damaged and she’s breathing only because we’re helping her to do so.”

I looked up from the legalese on the tablet. It wasn’t Jody’s will, nor was it a release for organ transplant. “I don’t understand. She’s still alive, yes?”

The counselor tapped her tablet’s screen and some more documents appeared on mine. “Technically, yes. She’s breathing and her brain is functioning. But she’ll be bed-ridden for life. There is, however, an option. We just need the signature of a designated representative.”

Jody and I discussed this moment before we mustered out from Deimos. She didn’t want to be on permanent life support if something like this happened. I read the document. It wasn’t a termination of life order. It was something else.

The counselor’s voice droned on in the background but it was muted and I couldn’t make out all the words. After a few readings I understood what was happening.

“…of course the procedure is in the experimental stages but our early tests showed promise. We will need a signature to proceed and begin the transfer.”

The procedure. Consciousness uploading was starting to become common practice among the wealthy and elite back on the L5 orbital but outside of the renegade outpost near Saturn it was out of most peoples’ reach. Jody’s mind would be transferred into a storage device, not exactly a copy…more like a digital version. Like the planks of an entire boat being removed and re-assembled at another place. They’d build a cybernetic body for her, a polycarbon skeleton and artificial muscles. Eyes and ears and speech. She’d have Jody’s memories and her personality but would it be her or just an imperfect copy? The stylus in my hand hovered above the signature line on the tablet’s screen.

Just to talk to her again. Just to tell her I loved her, I signed. The counselor notarized the entry and sent it off for approval. The procedure would take a week to complete. The new body was already constructed. They sent me back to Deimos Base to wait.

I spent the time attending funeral services, reading reports and catching up on news. The Martian Conflict wasn’t over, not by a long-shot, but parts of the city were now under control. Some ties were discovered between the terra-forming corporation and some government officials involved in passing the initiative, but that was nothing new. InfraCorp was a major tech conglomerate with its fingers in many pies, including the razed mining operation on Phobos. Wild theories flew across the system network about InfraCorp using the Conflict to give its stock a boost but I discounted those rumors as the mad ramblings of bored loners living out their lives on data forums. I scanned one from a saturn.sol address. A Rounder complaining of corporate influence on their beloved anarchy. Baenziger had shipped out to join them. Price stayed behind and blew himself out an airlock. One more gone.

I heard a quiet tone, a new message was in my inbox. Jody’s shuttle was en route and would be landing as soon as a window opened. My medical consult assured me that the procedure was successful and Jody had adjusted well to her new body, both physically and psychologically. There was something in the consult’s voice that troubled me but I assumed it was just a natural emotional response to news of Jody’s recovery.

I’d seen the body so it wouldn’t be a total shock. It was designed to function like a human body, albeit one with a heavier frame and enhanced abilities. I imagined Jody’s metallic body deflecting bullets and lifting cars, just like in the superhero action vids we used to watch. I knew it wouldn’t look like Jody, not exactly. But close. As I stood by the landing bay I felt my heart racing. No matter how much I knew, I didn’t know. Not for real, not until I could see her.

Non-essential personnel weren’t allowed on the dock, not since security was tightened after the incident on Phobos. I waited in the ready room and practiced what I was going to say, my reaction to her, replaying that image of her in the med bay.

The door slid open and a male lab tech entered holding a tablet. He wore an InfraCorp ID badge.

“Private Reyes?” He walked over to me and extended a hand. “I’m Douglas Davis from InfraCorp.”

I kept staring at the badge. “I’m a civilian now. Mister is fine. InfraCorp?”

He nodded. “We designed the cybernetic shell that houses Private Collier’s identity matrix.”

I felt my stomach twist. “I…is she here?”

Davis nodded again. “Right this way. She’s been asking about you.”

Words cannot explain the emotions. There was nothing human about her anymore. From her head to her feet she was metal and plastic. She had Jody’s hair and facial features and the color of her eyes and skin were exactly the same. But she moved with a strange lurching motion and perfect control over her movements, a combination of the graceful and the grotesque. A marionette wearing ballet slippers.

Davis stood at my side and whispered into my ear. “We’re already working on upgrades and of course, she’ll receive beta versions at no cost.” I ignored him, focusing my attention on Jody.

She stopped in front of me and smiled. “Stephan?”

I couldn’t stop crying once I heard her say my name. I rushed over to her and embraced her, burying my head in her shoulder. I felt her arms encircle me and she whispered, “It is good to see you again.” She was warm, not cold like I expected.

I looked into her eyes. Something was missing but I almost didn’t care.

“Jody…I…I can’t believe you’re alive and here with me. I thought I lost you forever down there.”

She pulled away from me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, Stephan. I’m fine. The technicians have repaired me and given me this new body. Everything is fine.”

But everything was not fine.

It was a few days later and we were at the mess hall. Jody no longer ate but would often accompany me for lunch so that we could talk and share each other’s company. Just like the old days.

“I’m not from Iceland.” she said, laughing in that strange synthetic reproduction of Jody’s laugh. I put down my fork and looked at her.

“Excuse me?”

She laughed again and smiled. “Do you remember when you said, ‘You don’t look Icelandic.’? I was enrolled in university in Iceland but I’m not a native Icelander.”

“I know, Jody. It was just a joke. An old joke from when we first met.”

She smiled again. “You’re right.”

“Jody?”

She looked at me, seeing me with those cybernetic eyes. Scanning my heat signature with thermographic vision. Reading my pupil dilation and my micro-muscular movements. Analyzing my heart rate and cross-referencing my body language in her internal database of memories.

“I remember a dog back on Mars, during the mission. Do you remember that dog?”

She said that she did.

“A wire-haired terrier mix, white with spots. It looked malnourished.”

I held her hand and told her about the explosion and how I lay there under the debris. I told her how the dog watched me but never got close. She listened intently, nodding at points in the story.

“Yes?”

“And I thought about you and I prayed that you were alive.”

“Thank you.” she said.

I felt something inside me break, shatter into pieces like the walls of that relay building. I felt a pressure on my chest and my skin broke out in beads of sweat. She waited for me to continue. I couldn’t. Something had escaped translation. She had Jody’s memories, she knew our little jokes, she even spoke with Jody’s voice. But as I held her hand in my own I knew that it was all a lie. This wasn’t Jody anymore than the voice on an answering machine was a person. I was speaking to a ghost. To a dead woman.

I felt the tears on my cheeks, hot and wet. She asked me why I was sad.

I shut my eyes tight and opened them. A cat’s kiss.

She stared into mine, the smile replaced by an approximation of concern. “Is something wrong?”

When I signed that release form, I did it so I could talk to her again. So I could tell her that I loved her.

I pushed my tray of food away and walked out of the mess hall. She called out my name but I kept walking, shutting the sound of her voice out of my mind. I went to my room and locked the door behind me. I saw the empty cots against the wall.  I remembered Corporal Baenziger and his pilgrimage to the space station near Saturn. The one he called FreeMarket.

Jody was gone. Soon I would be as well.