Curious
Sols

By
Myron J. Smith III

Text Copyright ©2016 Myron J. Smith III

All Rights Reserved

To Sami and Kristen sister souls of curiosity

Table of Contents

Chapter
1   Fulfilling a Dream

Chapter
2   My Future is your Past

Chapter
3   Learning by Osmosis

Chapter
4   Walking in Her Footsteps

Chapter
5   Awkward Reunions

Chapter
6   Space Ghost

Chapter
7   Family Night

Chapter
8   Mysteries

Chapter
9   Hoist the Sails

Chapter
10   Risky Deceptions

Chapter
11   Beauty is in the Mind of the Beholder

Chapter
12   Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon

Chapter
13   Inventions have Mothers not Masters

Chapter
14   Worlds Apart

Chapter
15   Learning the Hard Way

Chapter
16   Plans of Mice and Men

Chapter
17   Out of the Minds of Babes

Chapter
18   A Battle for the Ages

Chapter
19   Correctional Courses

Chapter
20   In and Out of Trouble

Chapter
21     All for One and One for All

Chapter
22     You’ve Got Mail

Chapter
23     Planar Geometry

Chapter
24     The Spider and the Fly

Chapter
25     Welcome Home

Chapter
26    Rock Bottom Epiphany

Chapter
27     Crackerjack Surprise

Chapter
28     Women and Children First

Chapter
29    Jump

Chapter
30    A Perfectly Good Spaceship

Chapter
31    Left Turn at Albuquerque

Chapter
32   Turn of Fortune

Chapter
33   I Say So! Okay?

Chapter
34   Crazy Train

Chapter
35   In Search Of

Chapter
36   Trick or Treet

Chapter
37   Where Eagles Fly

Chapter
38   EX-citing Clues

Chapter
39   One Big and a Half Happy Family

Chapter
40   EX Marks the Spot

Chapter
41  Mine all Mine

Chapter
42  Unpleasant Memories

Chapter
43  Valid ID

Chapter
44  Welcoming Committee

Chapter
45  Old Friends and New

Chapter
46  This Land is Mine Land

Chapter
47  Karma

Chapter
48  Through the Double Doors

Epilogue

Chapter 1   Fulfilling a Dream

Quietly whirring,
a faint ball of light floated down the hallway. With a little roll, it
skittered its way around the corner and into a small dark room. The softball
sized orb danced and fluttered about before stopping a meter above the
ground.  Barely visible from its white glow, a young girl lay sleeping,
peacefully in a small bed.  Although clearly asleep, a smile came over her
face as the light drew near. The glowing ball dimmed, then with a whirl, wound
its way under the girl’s arm.  She hugged the ball, still seemingly resting,
and turned over.

Hours later, a dim light from the walls of the room
slowly brightened.  Its increasing intensity soon revealed a small girl’s
bedroom.  The corners of the room held a stack of stuffed animals of
various types, with a purple color in common.  In fact, the walls of the
room were purple, as was much of the decor.

The girl slowly
woke, noticing the addition of her nighttime visitor, gave the ball of light a
big hug.  As she did, the ball turned a deep shade of purple, then back to
orange, its light now adjusted to fit a brighter surrounding.

“Wispy!” exclaimed
the girl with joy. “You’re back.  What have you been up to?”

The ball rotated
in several small circles while turning a light shade of red.

“I knew
it!  If you're up to something and mom catches you, she’s going to take
you back to her lab,” scolded the girl.

With a quick spurt
the ball hovered over to a dresser and set down upon the top.  “That’s a
good idea,” reaffirmed the girl. “You just stay right there while I get some breakfast.
I can’t wait until mom has time to fix us breakfast again. The instant waffles
are terrible.” The little ball of light made a tiny spin and turned a tint of
green at her comment. Jessica, unaware of Wispy’s reaction, put on her slippers
and headed toward the kitchen.

“Morning, Squirt,”
muttered a half-awake young woman at a breakfast table.

“Squirt? So I’m a
squirt?... Okay.” Jessica grabbed a breakfast tube from the food dispenser.
“So, if I’m a squirt,” giggled the girl as she opened the tube, “then I guess
there’s only one thing I can do.”  Turning toward her older, half-sister,
she smiled and took aim.

“Don’t you even
think about it,” glared the teenager as she slowly moved toward the girl.

“Careful,” giggled
the girl, “don’t make me mess up your…” But before Jessica could finish her
playful taunt, the teen deftly moved to the side of her. “Stephie!” screeched
the younger sister as she squeezed the tube quickly. A yellow sticky goo shot
out of the breakfast tube, barely missing her older sibling as her side-step
had taken her out of the way.

Before the two
could continue, a video of a woman working in a computer lab appeared on a
clear glass wall opposite them. Like many of the appliances and counter-tops,
the walls of the room were made of a special glass. It was designed to show and
manipulate multimedia applications such as videos and pictures. In this case,
it also allowed parents to check up on their children and make sure that they
weren't getting into too much trouble.

"Unless you
are planning on giving the kitchen a free cleaning for Mom, I suggest you put
down that tube, Jessica,” warned her mother.

“Oh, and,
Stephanie,” continued the woman, “save the defensive moves for your fit
class." Stephanie slowly lowered her guard as she turned away from the
image of Ashley.  Once her face was concealed from Ashley's view a playful
smile was consumed by a scowl. By the time Stephanie had turned full circle a
blank look was all her step-mother would see.  Fully separated, the girls
returned to a semi-breakfast position.

"Jessica,
make sure you get to class on time today,” she gave a reminder. “And, speaking
of getting to class on time, just where is your wisp?” the lady asked.

"Wispy's in
my room, Mom— charging up," the girl said softly, avoiding the gaze of her
mother.

"Okay. Wispy
needs to stay charging up. I don't want you being late to class again because
of it,” her mother gave one last warning.

Jessica gave her
mom a quick look and a thumbs up before conveniently turning her attention back
to breakfast. She had luckily escaped trouble yesterday for being late to
class, especially with her father being the teacher. Between his teaching
duties and her mother running the science lab, Jessica had more free time on
her hands than she was used to. Sometimes, that meant she accidentally
found her way into a bit of trouble, but most of the time it was Wispy’s fault.

Everyone on
board had a very specific job to do or else they wouldn't be here. Her father
had two jobs. While the ship was flying to Mars, he served as the lore keeper
and teacher of history. When the ship arrives at Mars though, he will lead the
sentinels and watch over the people.

"Ashley,"
started the older daughter, referring to her stepmother by her first name.
"I won't be back for dinner, I'm going to the coasters tonight."

A flash of
annoyance was quickly dashed as her stepmother replied, "Be back before
star watching tonight. You know your father's been looking forward to this for
some time."

Stephanie began to
speak, then stopped, seeming to change her mind.

"Okay,
I'll be back in time,” she said quickly.  Grabbing a breakfast tube, she
jammed an assortment of items into her pack.

The coasters were
one of the few exciting things for teenagers to do aboard the ship. The name
hailed from the days when large amusement parks entertained people all around
Earth.  Although it goes without question a roller coaster cannot fit into
a spaceship, a simulated coaster can provide all the thrill and excitement
without the space requirements. In fact these coasters surpassed their
ancestors by allowing a rider to design their own course.

Satisfied that the
girls were on the right track, Ashley gave them a wave and ended the video.

"I can't wait
for the stargazing tonight," Jessica cheered from her breakfast stool.
"Dad says there's a cool comet tail that we'll be able to see from the
port side."

"You have fun
with all that stargazing," muttered Stephanie. "There is an open
track coaster with my name on it, and I'm not leaving until I set a record no
one can touch."

"What about
Dad?" questioned Jessica, "he wants us all there."

“So do I,” fired
Stephanie revealing a hint of buried anger, “so do I.”

Jessica wasn't
quite sure what to make of her older sister's comment, but before she could ask
about it, an orange ball of light zipped around the corner and into the
kitchen.

"Wispy what
are you doing in here?" questioned Jessica. "You're supposed to be
charging in my room. Mom's already on me about your behavior. Just where were
you last night?"

"See you
later, Squirt!" shot Stephanie as she pulled the pack over her shoulder
and headed toward the exit door.

"Hey, wait a
second!" Jessica tried to get her sister's attention, but it was too late.
She was already two rooms away and out of earshot.

"Well you're
going to have to be my substitute sister for the night Wispy. Let's go to my
room and figure out something to do." The young girl and the glowing
orange ball both bounced their way back to the small bedroom.

#

Stephanie
made a sharp turn into her bedroom. She had almost forgotten her Ksync which
would have been disastrous for her upcoming coaster run.  After all, every
great moment in time needs a great theme song.  Her mind backtracked to
the first time she remembered listening to music while flying a sim.
Almost ten years had passed since then.

Stephanie
remembered an early Sunday morning at the Air Force base. Even at the early
hour, her father was at work.  He was on active duty, and would get called
away on a moment’s notice for some sort of rescue mission.  He never
talked about them.  With her mom gone and him at work every other week,
she learned to cherish Sunday mornings.

The
morning hours led to the discovery of her greatest love in life… flying.
Her father would sneak her into the drone simulators, and they would have an
hour of great fun.  Occasionally, a pilot or two scheduled conflicting
times in the early mornings. No one said anything to her father, at least not
until Ashley came along. Quite a few things changed at that point.

“I’ve
been practicing all week on my PlayStation, Dad,” said a young girl. “You don’t
stand a chance against me.  Do you want to give up now or later?”

Jonathon
Quinn reached down and grabbed his daughter’s nose. “I should surrender now,
but giving up has never been my strong suit.”

The
two of them finished attaching the simulator’s sensors around their bodies
before entering the simulator cockpits. As John lifted his daughter up into the
sim, the comm unit attached to his uniform sounded.

“Just
a moment, Squirt,” John said as he set her back down and clicked the comm.

“Lieutenant
Quinn,” addressed a crisp male voice. “General Gossitt,” identified the base
commander.

“Lieutenant
Quinn here, Sir,” John replied as he came to attention.

“Lieutenant,
I have an important visitor for you to meet.  We’re on our way to your
location now to discuss your project.  Report to me in the control
center.”

“Yes,
Sir,” John acknowledged in a neutral tone, trying to hide his anxiety.

Quickly
removing the sensors from both of them, John explained to Stephanie, “Kiddo we
need to get out of here and get to the control room on the double. It’s going
to be hard enough to explain what you’re doing on base, let alone wired into a
combat sim.”

Stephanie
gave her father a look of disappointment, but slowly helped him take off the
sensors.

“With
any luck we can try again next weekend.” John tried to alleviate her feelings
the best he could.

The
look on her face didn’t change much. Left unchanged it typically led to
trouble, but John couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He took his daughter by
the hand and quickly walked up the stairs leading to the control booth. Coming
down the stairs was another pilot.  John stopped and saluted her, then
quickly continued up the staircase. As they reached the top, a clear doorway
leading to the control room opened silently.

Once
inside, John quickly ran through a list of possible reasons why his daughter
could be with him.  The words rang as hollow in thought as they would
likely have sounded aloud. John settled on what he should… the truth.  Not
more than a minute later, the General’s escort entered the room. They were
followed by the General and a young woman in her early twenties. John couldn’t
help shifting his focus to her.  There was a look about her that conveyed
a confidence beyond her years. As the general approached, the room was called
to attention and customary salutes were exchanged.

Only
one person noticed Stephanie slip out of sight.

“At
ease,” directed the general.  Looking toward the young woman, he began
introductions. “Doctor Brynn, I’d like you to meet the group leader I was
talking about, Lieutenant Quinn. Lieutenant, this is Doctor Brynn, assistant
director of the neurology department at Harvard.”

“Please
to meet you Miss, er… Doctor Brynn,” stumbled John. “You don’t often meet
someone so, I mean someone whose name sounds like yours. You know, Quinn,
Brynn, it kind of rhymes.”

The
woman extended her hand with a half-puzzled, half-smiling look on her face.

“It’s
a pleasure to meet you Lieutenant…Quinn,” she replied. “The general has been
generous with his praise for your work here.  I’m looking forward to
working with you and your team.”

John
came back to reality as her last words set off a bell in his mind.

“Work
with my team, Sir?” John directed to General Gossett.

“Lieutenant,
your team’s assignment is taking a new direction,” answered the general. The
Air Force has been looking for some time now, at ways to update our methods of
training. Flight sims and field practice worked in the past, but today’s Air
Force needs pilots able to respond to situations that don’t exist yet.  We
have to be more fluid, adaptable, and faster at identifying and responding to
crisis situations.  Dr. Brynn’s research at Harvard may have the key to
changing today’s practice for tomorrow’s problems."

The
general was about to continue when sounds from the combat board interrupted
him. In response the group turned toward the board. It displayed a visual
representation of the drone combat simulation as seen by the pilots in the
sims.  Being Sunday, the mission’s controls were manned by a single
airman. The ensign was calling in targets for a combat scenario.  On the
screen, two Air Force A1-03 Supercharger drones were locked in combat with a
half-dozen Chinese manufactured strike drones.

“Nice
shooting,” remarked a woman’s voice from the control board.

“Thanks,”
briefly replied a muffled voice.

#

While
the grown-ups were talking their heads off, Stephanie slipped through the
silent doorway. She flew down the set of stairs to the combat pods. There was
no way she would miss a chance to fly her drone, certainly not for some
meeting.  General Gossitt should've had stars on his collar for boring
people.  That would make him a four star general for sure.   The
kids on the base called him “General Gossip” because he would talk forever at
school assemblies. Needless to say, she should have time to make an entire run
on the sim without being missed.

Conveniently,
her father was in such a hurry to get up to the control room, that he'd left
his Ksync on a bench outside the pod.  Stephanie grabbed the device. Then
with a leap, she pulled herself up into the pod. Once inside she yanked the
hatch down and attached the Ksync to the flight controls. The display in her
pod showed an active mission was already underway.  That was alright, she
could easily join a run in progress.  As her father’s Ksync gave her
access to the mission, it had also been set to play one of its stored songs
upon activation. A volley of rock 'n roll guitar and steady drums filled the
cockpit.  Stephanie looked at the screen on the Ksync, it listed the song
as “Panama” by someone called Van Halen.  She tried to shut it off, but it
quickly became clear she might shut down her connection to the pod as well.
She let it play instead while she attached the flight control sensors to her
body.  Within moments she had joined the simulation.

As
the guitar’s harmonics vibrated through the cockpit, her drone had kicked in
afterburners for launch.  By the time the singer yelled “Uh huh”, the
drone was rocketing to the hot zone.  It was time for serious action.

#

John
was thankful that the board had sounded.  The distractions must have
sidelined any questions about his daughter.  He smiled and looked to his
right for Stephanie.  She wasn’t there.  He turned quickly the other
way and then around behind.  She was gone.  A horrid realization
crept into his mind as he began to put the pieces together.

His
actions hadn’t gone wholly unnoticed.

“Something
wrong, Lieutenant?” asked the general.

John
looked at the door leading to the sim bay below.

“Sir
as much as I’d like to accept a new assignment, I have to admit I’ve been
struggling a bit with balancing work and family…” John tried to explain, but
was cut off by the sound of gunfire from the control board.

The
general’s attention was snatched back by the visuals on the screen as was the
rest of the room’s audience.

“Amazing
shot drone one,” commented the ensign manning the control board.

“I
have to keep pace with my wingman it seems,” replied a female pilot through the
control board.

In
short order the two Air Force drones had downed all six Chinese drones.  A
combination of amazing flying from both pilots and intuitive teamwork gave the
onlookers an energetic round of entertainment.

“Now
that’s the kind of excellence we are looking for from your team,” commented the
general.

John
looked from the control board to the door and then back to the general.
“General, that’s not my team down there. Well, not my official team.”

“Well
then, who’s flying those sims, Lieutenant?” asked the general with a harder
tone.

The
ensign at the control board interjected before John could answer, “Captain
Sterling is in drone one, Sir.”

“That
explains that,” replied the general.  Pausing a moment, he followed up.
“Send the captain up.”

Turning
to Dr. Brynn the general suggested, “You need to meet Captain Sterling while we
are lucky enough to have her on loan from the Navy.  She was pivotal in
setting up our training center before John took over. But don’t get any ideas,
our newly designed facility is the optimum place for your research.”

An
unexpected call came over the general’s shoulder comm.

“General,”
interjected the caller, “I have the call you’ve been waiting for on hold. Are
you available to take it?”

The
officer keyed his mic. “Give me one moment and I’ll have the ensign here page
you with a number.”  Motioning to the ensign he ordered him to send a page
to his office.  He then turned back to his guest. “Pardon me, Doctor.
Perhaps you can enlighten John here a bit about your project.  I’ll be
just a minute.”

“Of
course, General,” she replied.

As
the general walked over to the control center’s secure line, John wasn’t sure
what he was going to say to the doctor.  He didn’t have to wait long,
however, to get a read on her disposition.

“So,
the local chapter of Girl Scouts was full?” she sarcastically whispered.

John
was caught off guard by her remark. “Come again.”

“Oh,
I was just thinking it must be one heck of an elementary school proficiency
test you have here on the base,” Dr. Brynn mused.  “Reading books, writing
paragraphs, shooting down Chinese drones, the basics any young student must
master these days.”

John
was picking up on her sense of humor now. This could go one of two ways. John
was hoping he was reading her right, or the drones weren’t going to be the only
thing crashing and burning here.

“I’m
just a single dad trying to help his daughter live her dreams,” he said with a
sarcastic smile of his own.

“Her
dreams or what you’d have her dream?” she countered.

John
shook his head, “If you’ve known this child since she was able to crawl, you’d
know she was a born speedster.”

“When
the General pieces things together how will you explain it?” she asked as
though she was only mildly curious.

“He
won’t have to find out,” John replied. “I’ll tell him.”

“So
you’re a boy scout then?” she quipped. “Honesty is the best policy and all
that?”

“I’m
an officer in the Air Force, Doctor. That simple,” he responded.

“Well
it turns out I may be looking for an Air Force officer…and a boy scout,” she
said with a small smile.

Having
finished his call, the General returned to the small group.

“General,
excuse me, but as I was saying about my family, I take full responsibility for
my actions…” John began, but it was his turn to be interrupted, in this case by
two people entering the room from the sim area.  Captain Sterling was
dressed in her Navy flight suit. She was followed closely behind by Stephanie.
Dressed in rolled up Navy fatigues clearly labeled Sterling on the shirt
jacket, she beamed with a smile ear to ear.

The
officers exchanged greetings.

“General,
I hope you don’t mind my brevity, but today I’m on active supervision duty with
this young lady and we’re late for morning services.”

The
general’s features communicated a feeling of unexpected disappointment.

“I
was hoping you could go over the program with us, Captain,” related the
General.

“The
minute services are over I would be happy to,” countered the Captain.

“After
church then, Captain,” grudgingly agreed the general. “If the chaplain asks
tell him I’ll be stopping by later today as soon as I can break away.”

John
gave Anita Sterling a look of thanks as the two of them headed toward the exit.
He quickly shifted his gaze to his daughter, shooting his “laser eyes” as she
called his stern glares. Meanwhile, Doctor Brynn was glancing at the control
screen and then to the young girl.  She began to mouth a question, but
stopped as General Gossett started to speak.

“You
were saying, Lieutenant?” asked the General.

Pausing,
John replied, “It takes a village to raise a child these days sir, or in a
pinch a highly decorated fighter pilot. Before we continue there’s an issue I
need to bring to your attention…”

Stephanie
placed her Ksync securely in her pack. She was going to keep pushing herself to
fly higher.  That meant putting in extra time on the coaster.  In
some ways it was the hottest sim on the ship. Hopefully, she could pull off a
little side training session without her father clipping her wings.

Chapter 2   My Future is your Past

Jonathon Quinn
shifted in his chair as he tried to get comfortable. Touching the screen on his
desk, he dimmed the lights in his office. The lack of sleep was starting to
catch up with him and his eyes were more than a bit tired.  He had been
working on a lesson review that would hopefully engage his students more than
yesterday.  His secret weapon was tapping into his childhood.  As a
kid it seemed his father and grandfather had always been wrapped up in some
project.  He was used to it though, and it wasn't like he was bored.
He had the entire White House to explore and generally found his way into small
amounts of trouble.

One such jaunt had
led him on quite the adventure.  He had found a hat given to his
grandfather by the Australian Governor-General of the time.  He wore the
hat everywhere in the White House, pretending he was taming the outback.
Apparently, his grandfather got such a kick out of the show that he let him
borrow it on a permanent basis.

John reached out
to a small stand by his desk.  Resting on the stand was a suede hat with
an Aussie-style brim. He snatched the hat up and with twirl, placed it on his
head. Then he leaned back in his chair as the hat stirred up more memories of
his childhood.

Eventually, he
found his way to the White House movie theater.  His grandfather had a
passion for movies, and for something called television. Especially some of the
decades old stuff. Some of his fondest memories as a child were of the three of
them sitting side by side in those cushy chairs and watching the
classics.  It was his grandfather, after all, that had inspired him as a
youngster to join the MARC program.  If only his father had shared his
enthusiasm for leaving the family business and following his dreams.

A picture on his
desk caught his eye.  It was an heirloom of sorts, passed down from his
grandfather.  John stared at the three generations of Quinns within the
frame.  As he did, his mind drifted into the past.  His daydream
envisioned an anecdote his father had shared about the birth of the MARC
program.

“How
did we get here?” whispered a man in anguished tones.  He took off his
suit coat and slung it on a neighboring chair. The circular room he stood in
was a mix of cutting edge technology and antique furniture.  One piece of
furnishing held his vision, a picture frame sitting on an ornate desk.  It
was a happy scene, one of himself, a man appearing as a younger version of
himself, and a young child watching a movie together in the White House Theater.

Refocusing
his vision on one of fifty paper-thin screens around him, he took a deep
breath.

“Manuel
do you see this?” he questioned while motioning toward a screen. A second man,
one of a dozen or so executive dressed people in the room, turned and moved
toward him.

Pointing
at the screen in front of him the first man continued, “Tell me I’m not looking
at downtown Chicago, right here in the United States. Are you kidding
me?”  Fighting back an urge to knock over the chair next to him, Joe
squeezed his jacket resting on it. The force of his anger transferred to a grip
so powerful that his knuckles turned white. “Those are families, Manny.
Families lined up hoping to get food and shelter, and we have police in riot
gear firing tear gas canisters.  What’s going on? They’re only holding up
a few protest signs and singing carols!”

“There’s
more than carols going on there Mr. President,” countered the second man in an
empathetic tone. “Chicago’s been on the verge of mass violence for over a week
now,” he added.

“And
if I had a choice, I’d likely be out there holding a sign with those people,”
riposted the President of the United States. Throwing his arms up he continued.
“A third of them are in jeopardy of going hungry tonight and when they speak
out about it, we bring down the hammer. What happened to an idea we once called
free speech? Are we now just steamrolling over any right that isn’t convenient
for us?”

“We
have to keep people safe, Mr. President,” countered the Speaker of the House.

“We
have to keep people safe from dying of starvation,” replied the President in a
gasp of exhaustion. “They are not protesting taxes on their bloody tea, Manuel!
We can’t punish them for voicing their need to have a piece of bread to eat.”

Walking
a few steps closer to another screen the President motioned. “Then we have this
mess. What’s the death toll up to now, with this settlement, five
thousand?”

The
Speaker stepped closer to the screen. A placard on the bottom of the screen
read Nevada.  A news crew was showing video of a large concrete compound.
Desert winds whipped through several open areas making visibility
difficult.  The reporter on camera was pointing at various parts of the
compound. At the same time the camera’s view followed the reporter’s direction,
moving around the compound before settling on the center courtyard. Obscured by
the winds and partially covered by sand were dozens of people. Although the
visibility was difficult, it was clear to tell by their lack of motion that
they were deceased.

“FEMA
is already spread too thin Mr. President,” commented the Speaker. “When Mother
Nature throws her hat into the ring, it’s too much stress to the system.”

The
President tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows at the remarks.

“If
we didn’t have extremist groups marching people through the desert to set up
communes, this wouldn’t be happening,” replied the President. “When people
believe that living in a dust bowl is better than life in a metropolis, we’d
better take notice.  I’m all about religious freedom, but the number of
cults brainwashing unsuspecting people is getting out of hand. We need to focus
on getting the Housing Authority to work faster on reconditioning urban areas,”
he finished.

“I
wish people weren’t packed into shelters like sardines,” the Speaker agreed.
“But the grim reality is there are more people than healthy communities these
days.  As bad as we have it, Mr. President, India and China have been
seeing this kind of crisis for a decade now.  Maybe more to the point, Mr.
President, how do we get everything back on track?  It’s not just one
system. Every government on the globe seems ready to plunge into something… to
go someplace… A place I don’t want to think about.”

In
the midst of everything that was happening, even Joseph Quinn was taken aback
by the Speaker’s words.  He paused, slowly turned, and paced in a small
circle for what seemed the longest minute of his life.

“Mr.
Speaker,” a hard voice that softened continued. “We are not the first to stare
into the uncertainty of the world.  When Kennedy dealt with the realities
of Sputnik, he faced two choices. One, let his imagination run wild with the
most frightening possibilities... Soviets raining nuclear missiles down from
the sky, coworkers feeding secrets to the Communists.  He could have
capitulated to such fear, or… do something that was counter-intuitive. Extend a
hand to the country that had beaten us to space. Offer them a pact for peace
based upon a joint exploration of a new frontier.  He embraced hope and
everything we want to be, as an American, as a partner of the world.”

Looking
past the screens, he looked across the room to an outside window.

“Kennedy
had the Moon, Mr. Speaker,” mustered the President, “…we have Mars.”

“Mr.
President," shot back the Speaker of the House, "you cannot compare
the events of the Cold War to our current situation.  We stand upon the
edge of a second great depression. Our ability to compete in a fair market has
been crushed by foreign countries, which have either stolen or duplicated most
of our intellectual property. Even our military is a shadow of its former
self."

The
speaker, lost in his own fervor, continued, “Who would you offer an olive
branch to… China, Russia, Britain? The world is consumed by its own problems:
overpopulation, toxic waste, disease, hunger.  Where can you hope to
find the money for this program, Mr. President, let alone the support?”

For
a moment, Joe Quinn, the forty-eighth President of the United States of
America, stood silent. It would take an expert of non-verbal communication to
read his face, the subtle shifts of creases, eye movement, and lips. That
person would see a pain, one of desperation, one of loss, and a sense of
defeat.  In the very next moment, the lines of pain on his face would
disappear, replaced by lines of confidence and a stare of determination.

“Life
may not duplicate itself, but look closely and you'll find the
similarities," began the President. "FDR hoped to pull the country
out of a great depression with the New Deal, but you and I both know it was war
spending that brought us out of the economic crisis."

The
president looked at the bronze eagle on his desk and then back at the speaker.
"The world cannot survive a conflict on that scale again, yet here we are,
standing in a place with circumstances much like those Roosevelt faced.
Do we pull back, retreat into our own boarders, and feed the fear of world
decline?" the President's voice continued to build in intensity.

“Do
we cross our fingers and hope to survive the inevitable conflicts that scarcity
of resources will bring to us?” He continued and with a boom, “I say no! We
must cast our lot with hope.  We must push to find those resources that
made our country great.  If necessity was ever the mother of invention, we
must trust we will have an explosion of thought and innovation to meet our dire
needs.  Manuel, we must push on with this project. We must go to Mars!”

The
Speaker began to respond, then paused, and let out a great sigh. After a moment
of shaking his head the Speaker replied, “I’m not sure I have the faith that
you have Joseph, but I’m tired of staring out of my window and thinking about
the world that was.  You have my support, Mr. President.”

Putting
on his jacket, the President moved to the speaker, the two of them exchanging a
firm handshake. Then turning toward the press room, both men walked through the
double doors and into a packed room of reporters.

John would have
continued daydreaming if it were not for a warning beep indicating his class
was ready to begin. He quickly recalled the plans he had for his classroom.
While activating the school neurolink, John practiced his best game show voice.
By the time the office had transformed into a classroom, he was ready to take
his place as greatest game show host of all time.

Chapter 3   Learning by Osmosis

Three beeps of a
familiar tone reminded Jessica that school was about to start. She quickly
turned off her holographic castle, removed the princess costume that was
dangling off Wispy, and traded in her own costume for a school uniform.
Jessica grabbed her NEUBI and hopped into her seat before anyone knew the
wiser.  She quickly pulled her hair through the headband and made a quick
adjustment to fit it snugly around her head.  Following the training she
received from elementary school, Jessica closed her eyes and prepared her mind
for the link.

As swirls of light
filled her thoughts, the bedroom she sat in began to change. The clear face of
her desk transformed into a vivid image of a desktop. Crystal clear
three-dimensional images of books, pencils, and erasers appeared to hover
inside the desktop.  Although Jessica knew she was still in her bedroom,
her mind now saw all the trappings of an elementary school classroom. The
room’s size appeared much larger now than a few seconds ago, and it was filled
with several boys and girls also sitting at their school desks.

Her holo castle
was a fun toy, but that was all it would ever be, especially compared to a
NEUBI.  The headband was really called a Neuroband Interface.  The
kid version was called a NEUBI because you could only receive senses the
computer sent you.  Jessica wasn't supposed to know that, but since her
mom invented it, there were a lot of things she knew about tech gizmos.

Jessica recognized
almost everyone in the room. She had spent several days now learning and
playing with her classmates just like school back on Earth. The only difference
was most of these children weren't actually here. They were close by on one of
the eleven other ships traveling to Mars. There were, however, a few kids in
the class from her ship. Mary was two rows over and Tahir two seats in front of
her. In the back left corner sat Vincent and almost square in the middle of the
room was Karen. All four of them were from the U.S.S. Columbus. Outside of
school, there wasn't much chance to play with them. Tonight though, for big
events like the Star watch, Jessica would have a chance to see them in person.

"Okay, class,
it's Friday, so you know what that means," prompted a deep excited voice
echoing through the room.

"It's Quiz
Time!" the class responded chorally.

With a sudden pop
and a burst of smoke, a man dressed in a standard issue MARC suit appeared in
the middle of the room.  The only curious part of his dress was a tan hat
that he wore. One side of the brim was snapped up and a cord of some kind
dangled from one side of the brim under his chin and attached on the other
side.

“Unfortunately,
the hat is real,” Jessica thought to herself.  The
teacher of course was real too, but not in her bedroom.  Her father was at
his office in another part of the ship.  The computer flawlessly
replicated him though the NEUBI and into her thoughts.  “Too bad the
NEUBI couldn't filter out some of his bad jokes,” she giggled to herself.

Jessica coughed a
bit as the odor of smoke reached her desk.  "Oh that stinks,"
she added.  Being able to smell things from the NEUBI could have its
positives, but this was not one of them. She'd have to talk to her mom about
what kind of smells the school used.

"The
categories today are: ‘On your MARC, get set, go!’, ‘That's a lot of MARCs!’,
and ‘MARC to the Future!’" explained the teacher in an old corny game show
style.

Jessica put her
hand over her face.

“Bad
jokes right out of the gate Dad,” pondered Jessica as she
mildly shook her head.

When she heard her
father talking about these categories the other night with her mother, even she
thought it was a bit out there.  MARC stood for Mars Astronautical Research
and Colonization.  Since they've been studying the program as their entire
history class for the trip, just hearing the acronym had started to bring on
mutterings from the class.  Her father of course resorted to games like
this to try to have fun.  He said something about this one being a
favorite of his grandfather’s that he saw on re-runs, whatever they were.

"You know the
rules, but in case you've forgotten since our last exciting game, I'll review
them," related Mr. Quinn. "We'll start the game with a random screen
flash, then the lucky winner will pick our first category.  When the AID
asks a question, everyone will have a chance to answer.  All answers are
recorded of course for your grade, so please do your best. The first person to
answer correctly, however, will take the points for that question. At the end
of our quiz, the person with the most points will get to play for a
super-secret fantastic prize!"

"Oh
boy," thought Jessica to herself, she was going to have to
find a way to tell her father that he was a bit heavy on the hamming it up
side, and a bit light on the funny. Luckily the AID (Artificial Instructional
Dynamic) talked in a bland computer voice, suitable for a straight man in a
pinch.

The lights in the
classroom dimmed a bit and the student's desktops began to glow randomly to the
beat of a musical song.  Jessica recognized it within the first five beats
as one of the songs her father would often listen to back in the pod. The song
started out with a neat kind of bass beat, then with the kick of some drums, it
came alive.  Somebody by the name of Wonder, or something like that, wrote
it.

Suddenly, seconds
into the song, both the flashing and music stopped. Ben's desk was lit up like
a festival decoration.

The voice of the
AID directed, "Benjiro, choose the category of your question."

Ben looked around
the room quickly then replied, " 'On your MARC, get set, go’ for 100
points, please."

"The MARC 1
program constructed a space station in orbit around Mars thirty years ago.
Explain the primary objective of the MARC 1 program," quizzed the
computer.  A flurry of small voices spoke without a sound at their
desks.  Each student's vocal response would be transmitted back to the
computer only, and not sent through the NEUBI network, so that others couldn’t
hear.  This ensured test integrity.

Jessica looked
around the room, wondering who would be the first person to answer the question
correctly.  She knew the answer. The MARC 1 program had to restart the
core of Mars.  It had something to do with the magnetic field around the
planet.

"Drat,"
she thought, as Viktor's desk turned green.

"One hundred
points awarded to Viktor," stated the AID.  It continued, "The
MARC 1 program was designed to cold fuse layers of Mars' core, thus creating an
energy transfer sufficient to re-enable the planet's magnetic
fields."  Viktor's desk returned to its regular color and the musical
light show began again.

The flashes of
light danced around the room, this time stopping on Mary's desk.

"I want ‘MARC
to the Future!’" blurted Mary before the AID could ask her to choose a
category.

"Woah,
Tex," Mr. Quinn jumped in, "a bit fast on the quick draw there.
You have to give ole AID a chance to ask his questions or he gets cranky."

If such a thing
was possible, the AID let out a cough, then asked, "Mary, choose your
category."

Mary repeated,
"I would like ‘MARC to the Future’ for five hundred points please."

The AID began,
"The MARC 4 program is currently en route to Mars with an estimated
arrival time of 22.27 days.  The seven founding dome cities will become
launch points for the colonies.   Name the seven founding
cities."

Again students'
mouths formed an orchestra of silent speech. Within a few seconds, the AID
announced the question winner.

"New Japan,
New Britain, New China, New Australia, New India, New Russia, and New America
are the correct locations," stated the AID.  "The first student
to answer correctly was Jessica. Jessica is awarded five hundred points,"
added the computer as Jessica's desk turned green.

Jessica blushed,
she always felt a bit embarrassed for achieving in the class.  It was
though she had to prove her smarts were her own, not from having the teacher as
a father. From the corner of her eye though, she caught a wink from her friend
Mary and relaxed a bit.  It was good to have friends.

Again the desk
color reset, and the light show started.  This time the flash stopped on
Santino's desk.  He was a boy from one of the other spaceships.
Santino was usually a bit quiet, so it was good that he had a chance to say
something.

"Santino,
choose your category," repeated the AID.

Santino rubbed his
desk with his hand several times in a nervous pattern while slinking down in
his chair an inch.

Santino managed to
voice his choice, "I'll take, ‘That's a lot of MARCs’ for 1000 points
please."

"Timeline
question," stated the AID.

Jessica smiled and
thought to herself, "Ok Jess, you love these questions. Just remember,
when the question pops up, roll the dial to the right date on the timeline as
fast as you can."

The AID began,
"This visual timeline will span the period of time from the start of the
MARC program to our current day. Four important events will flash above the
timeline.  Move your timeline dial to the correct date in the shortest
amount of time possible.  The student answering all four questions
correctly in the shortest cumulative time will be awarded one thousand
points."

The lights in the
room dimmed while a spherical screen materialized above the center of the room.
A large rectangular timeline box spun in a 360 degree circle on an imaginary
axis above the sphere.  The timeline box quickly slowed its spin before
coming to a complete stop.  Inside the box, a line appeared. It was marked
off in increments of five years beginning at 2035 and ending at 2075. At the
same time a mirror image of the timeline popped up on all of the students’
desks.  One addition to the desktop version, was a dial at the end of the
timeline and an arrow pointer that moved across the timeline as the dial was
turned. All of these sights and sounds were created seamlessly by the NEUBI.

The sphere flashed
and was followed by a crystal clear recording from a past MARC mission.
The landscape was easily identified as that of Mars. Several machines
surrounded what looked like a giant hole in the ground.  Although they
seemed to be silent, the vibrations from their operation caused Jessica's chair
to vibrate. (This of course wasn't really happening. The NEUBI's signal to
Jessica's brain, however, made it seem very real.) Protruding from the hole was
a rough, spherical shaped gigantic rock. Its texture was clearly marred with
holes, cracks, and other abrasions.  The color of the rock was dark, in
vast contrast to the red Martian dust surrounding it.

The viewing angle
then pitched and zoomed in on the crater's edge.  The machines now
appeared huge in stature, though still dwarfed by the gigantic meteorite. The
vibrations of her chair increased significantly.  Each machine seemed to
have a different operation, some were drilling into the meteorite, some moving
the resulting boulders to a cart, and others pounded the great rock.  It
was clear after a few seconds of observation, that this was a mining operation.

Jessica quickly
spun her virtual dial until it stopped on 2041. “That’s the meteorite that
helped build the domes,” she thought to herself.

A few seconds
later, the sphere dimmed until it was dark.  The vibrations which had
become a bit annoying had slowed and then stopped.

With a second
flash a new image appeared.  This time, an extremely tall building stood
upon the Martian landscape.  The camera spun around the outside of the
needle like building, winding its way up to the top.  A brisk wind whipped
through Jessica's hair. The view from the top was spectacular, looking across
hundreds of kilometers of land.  A vaguely familiar smell filled Jessica's
nose, it was a very earthy smell. (Was this supposed to smell like this or were
there now two odors to talk to her mother about?) The camera then pulled back
revealing dark clouds in the distance. A time lapse video began showing the
clouds rolling across the sky, filled with streaks of lightning.
Jessica's skin felt increasingly sticky as if she had just entered a tropical
biome.  Within moments the storm reached the tower, pelting the landscape
with giant drops of water.  Without warning, the students were then
blasted by a wall of water.  Everyone screeched, covering their heads as
if they would be drenched.

Jessica fought off
the urge to wipe the water from her face, quickly spinning the dial on her
virtual desktop.  This time she stopped the dial on the year 2047.

“The year of the
Great Storms,” recalled Jessica. “And that’s one of the atmospheric generator
towers.”

The sphere dimmed
once again. After the third flash, it came alive with a vista of a living
planet.  A great jungle of plants, vines, trees, flora, in every variety
and color filled the sphere.  As the view wound its way through the
jungle, it passed a river, cliffs, waterfalls, and even a shimmering rainbow.
There was something that did not seem to fit, a distinct alien look perhaps to
the plant life?  Maybe it was the rugged shapes of rock, or perhaps the
seemingly untamed aura filling the jungle? The sounds too were a bit off.
She noticed one in particular sticking out from the background noise. It
sounded like crickets, but not quite.

Jessica pinched
her nose. The smells were almost overwhelming.  They were like fruity
smells, but so strong. It was like there was a fruit skunk that had just
covered her old basset hound in an unshakable fruit skunk spray, and he came
home and ran through the house.

Jessica realized
she was wasting too much time soaking in the jungle. “Oh, come on Jess, get
that dial to 2050.” She repeatedly tapped it, trying to make up time.

The sphere dimmed
again, followed by the last flash.  This time a field of stars filled the
sphere.  Slowly the view turned and a planet came into view.
Beautiful wisps of clouds danced across a large blue sea covering a majority of
the northern hemisphere. A massive continent was also visible stretching from
the mid-section of the planet to the southern pole. An assortment of physical
features filled their reddish brown interiors.  What looked to be mountain
ranges wound their way across the continent.  One mountain in particular
stood out like a man among boys, stretching up toward space.

All of
these features were typical of the unique wonderland called planet Earth.
This planet though, was not Earth. The shapes did not fit. It was like nothing
seen before, at least nothing in recent times.  The view slowly turned,
rotating one hundred eighty degrees before finally settling upon twelve
glistening metallic ships.  Each one glided through space as though
soaring on a great current of air.  Elegant silver sails wrapped around
the center of each ship in three hundred sixty degree arc.  In the
distance behind them rotated Earth and its moon.   A piercing beam of
plasma extended from an orbital satellite around the moon. Through the darkness
of space it travelled before pushing upon the great silver sails of each ship.

“Mars… and our
journey, to our new home,” thought Jessica as a smile broadened across her
face.  She proudly spun the dial to 2075.

They had launched
just a week ago from the space dock above Earth. Like a kid on a swing set, the
MARC ships had been given a big push from the plasma beams of the space
station. Their glistening light stuck the great sails of each ship and
transferred the energy into motion. Each sail was able to adjust its angles
ever so slightly so initial course corrections could be made during
launch.  After the initial burst, the beams stopped, and the ships
continued to glide through space at a remarkable pace.

Waiting for them
at Mars, was another space station that had been launched during the
terraforming years.  The station’s satellites were also equipped with
rotational plasma beams of their own. These beams would slow incoming ships,
allowing them to be captured by gravity and establish orbit.  Several ore
carriers had been successful in travelling between the planets using this
method.  It had proven superior to conventional rocket use in these
unmanned transports, shortening the journey by several months.
This was the first time, however, that passenger ships had used
this technology.  It was just one more example of the experimental nature
of the mission.

When the sphere
dimmed this time, it faded out of sight along with the timeline box.

“One thousand
points are awarded to Benjiro,” announced the AID.

“Great job,
Benjiro!” remarked Mr. Quinn. “That’s what I call being quick on the dial.”

Jessica rolled her
eyes and looked over at the scoreboard.  Ben was easily in the lead now.
That would soon change though.  Four questions later, Viktor had made a
comeback and was right behind Ben in second place. Jessica was almost happy to
be in third on the scoreboard. The placement was far enough out first place to
avoid any snappy looks. Before the game could continue, a soft beeping light
appeared on the glass wall beside Mr. Quinn’s desk.

“One moment class
while I get this,” interjected Mr. Quinn as he walked over to his imaginary
desk.

He touched the
beeping light and it stopped. In its place an image of Jessica’s mother
appeared. She was talking to her father, but the audio was not being
transmitted through the NEWBI to her.  The conversation only lasted a
minute or two before it was over. Mr. Quinn returned to the center of the room.

“Mom
never calls during class,” pondered Jessica.

“Ok, sorry about
that class,” apologized Mr. Quinn. “Let’s get back to our game.  I think
it’s time for our final question!  Looking at the board, it looks like
Benjiro is our champion today.  Are you ready for the final trivia
question, Benjiro?”

Ben shifted in his
chair, sitting a bit more upright if possible, and with a smile said, “I’m
ready, Mr. Quinn.”

“Well then,”
acknowledged Mr. Quinn, “without further ado, AID can we have the final
question?”

“Final Question,”
reiterated the AID. “In the year 2033, the President of the United States
addressed the World Nations in a speech that was credited with the creation of
the MARC program. In that speech, President Joseph Quinn quoted the preamble of
the United States Constitution to garner support for the MARC program in his
own country. For the super-secret fantastic prize, Benjiro, your challenge is
to recite the preamble of the United States Constitution.”

Benjiro’s eyebrows
raised up while his smile retracted more than a bit. He nervously rubbed his
chin with his left hand while thinking. Slowly he attempted to recite the
lines, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a…more perfect
union, establish justice…” Benjiro paused. He unconsciously tapped his head
with his fingertip while a few more seconds passed. Then, he slowly began again,
“insure domestic tranquility and…um… provide for the…common defense, promote
the general welfare…” Benjiro’s speed began to pick up while his smile
returned, “… and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of
America!” Benjiro ended his recital practically jumping out of his chair.

“Correct,” stated
the AID simplistically. “Benjiro has won the super-secret prize,
congratulations.”

The class
cheered.  Benjiro waved with both hands, smiling from ear to ear.

“Way to go
Benjiro!” exclaimed Mr. Quinn, “you have won victory for yourself today.
On board the INS Maratha you should be an honorary captain today.  I’ll
make sure everyone on your ship hears of such a great triumph.”

Mr. Quinn always
made a bigger than life deal out of winning his class contests and the students
loved it.

“As for the
super-secret prize,” continued Mr. Quinn, “well, I have to send that over to
you by way of a top secret carrier.  We can’t have a super-secret prize if
I go and tell everyone what it is!” Moans of objection began to sound
throughout the room, but were suddenly interrupted, as the entire room, went
dark.

Jessica looked
around, the entire classroom had disappeared.  It was as if she had been unexpectedly
shaken out of a deep dream. Lights that should be on in her room were
off.  The only source of light was Wispy, hovering in the room and glowing
a deep red.

*

Chapter 4   Walking in Her Footsteps

Stephanie walked
over to the open coaster chair.  She had reserved time to ride it tonight,
but the guilt trip at breakfast had bumped up her plans.  That meant
cutting her MARC Academy training this morning, an acceptable opportunity
cost.  If everything ran smoothly, she could still show up later to the
stargazing with her dad.  She wasn't giving up on setting a new record.
The visions of victory were racing through her mind.  Nothing was going to
stop her now.

There were just a
few people scattered at elevated tables around the lounge.  This was
quietest time you could visit the Chiller.  Just as well, the less people
gawking at her run the better.  She didn't need the cheering and she
certainly didn't need someone ratting her out to her father. On a typical
night, she wouldn't mind. In fact she loved the attention. In the short time
she had been on board, her coaster runs had become a main event of the
club.

Back home outside
D.C., Stephanie had been racing since she was nine. She raced anything that was
legal, at least as far as her father knew.  She had to ditch her
off-the-grid racing, however, as she had set her sights on becoming a combat
pilot in MARC.  The captain and her had a little agreement that way. That
was another story.  If there was one pilot that she looked up to, it was
Captain Sterling.

Stephanie sat down
in the chair and opened a shoulder pack she had brought.  Inside the pack
were several compartments, holding the sum of all her cherished
valuables.   As she pulled out a food tube, for her makeshift
breakfast, the compartments in the bag adjusted to keep each item secure.
Stephanie quickly ate the contents of the tube, a ham and cheese omelet it
would seem. The tube cooked the food pretty well after opening, but every once
in a while a defective tube would serve an uncooked disgusting concoction.

After washing the
meal down with a drink, she again looked in the pack.  This time, she took
out a jet black case about five inches long by two inches wide.  Barely
observable was a label on the case that read, Dr. Ashley Quinn. Stephanie
looked around the room, as though she was looking for someone in
particular.  Satisfied, she quickly opened the case and took out the
elastic band within.  Stephanie slid a similar band off her head, placing
it in the black case.  She then twisted her curly brown hair through the
new band and adjusted it across her forehead until comfortably sitting at her
hairline.

As she put on the
neuroband, Stephanie caught a glimpse of movement in a side corner of the
room.  She couldn’t be too careful.   Pretending to go about her
pre-launch checks, she kept watch on the corner off the reflections inside her
coaster sim.  It would be just like the academy to send someone to check
on her.  They were always checking up on her.  It was one more thing
she hated about being crammed aboard the ship, there was no place to get
away.  No place except maybe the coaster.

A young man
approached the coaster from the side, Stephanie wasn’t watching.

“Steph,” greeted
the young man once he had stepped to the coaster.

Striking her head
on the low ceiling of the coaster, Stephanie literally jumped out of her seat.

“Steph, what are
you doing skipping class?” he questioned her.

She grabbed her
head checking for bleeding while turning in her chair toward him.

“Kevin, jeeze. You
trying to put me in the med bay?” Stephanie sarcastically asked.

“No, but that’s
where Mr. Kendal thinks I am,” Kevin replied. “I was hoping I wouldn’t find you
down here.  If you father finds out you’ve skipped class again for a
coaster run, you'll be grounded until we hit solid ground… on Mars.”

“Relax Kev,”
Stephanie cast him a smile. “It’s not like you wouldn’t see me. I must be the
only girl in the fleet with a boyfriend her father wants around.”

Kevin was the much
younger brother of Kyle Jennings, her father’s right hand man in the sentinels.
The whole Jennings clan was a bunch of straight shooters.  Kevin would
likely throw himself on his own sabre before going beyond a kiss with her.
It was that old fashioned chivalry stuff that his family was known for, and
likely why Kevin was so popular with her father.  Even so, only his good
looks and boyish charm kept him in her graces during times like this, when he
drove her crazy.

“Come on. If you
go with me now, I can probably get you into class with my pass from the med
bay.  It’s just a matter of catching the teacher when he’s lecturing,”
Kevin insisted.

“You know, that
type A personality of yours is wearing thin on me, Kevin,” Stephanie stated
with a hint of anger. “Just go back to class and leave me alone.  There’re
enough people in my business right now.  I don’t need more.”
Stephanie glanced to the side corner of the room again.

Reaching up to the
ceiling, she hit the manual override button on the doors. Then without warning,
she pulled the door shut in Kevin’s face.  Turning, she yanked the door
down on the other side of the coaster as well.

In a rare gesture
of frustration, Kevin smacked his hand on the coaster and walked away.

Stephanie watched
him leave the room.  A little voice in the back of her mind told her that
wasn’t the way to handle the situation.  It wasn’t something she would
linger on.

“Let's see what
you can do,” Stephanie silently challenged herself as she started up the
coaster. The chair naturally leaned back. Its ergonomically designed cushions
were designed for comfort.   They also provided the same feeling of
being in a real coaster back home.  The armrests of the chair each led to
a well-positioned steering controller.  They were used in tandem to
control the coaster's movement.  Skilled use of the controllers enabled
the rider to steer the coaster in any direction desired.

After making her
last ready check, Stephanie tapped the start-up button.  The sides of the
coaster slid and closed, providing a neutral environment for the neurolink to
operate without distraction.  Outside of the coaster, a holographic image
of the coaster appeared.  This hologram allowed other patrons of the
Chiller to observe the coaster runs and cheer for the riders if desired.
In this case, it also could sink her ship if some patron recognized Stephanie
and talked to her father about the run.  With a bit of work she could
usually talk her way out of things with her father. Skipping MARC training
would be hard to explain from the seat of a coaster.

“Aaah,” Stephanie
muttered, “almost forgot.”

Pulling an old
Ksync her father had given her out of pack, she strapped it to part of the
chair.

“Music, Made of
Tears, 6.0,” she prompted the Ksync with her voice.

One of the few
things her father had hooked her on was listening to some of his oldies.
There was a comfort that came from listening to them, reminding her of better
days.  This song in particular helped her find a groove, some guitarist
her dad called Joe Satch wrote the thing ages ago.  Not something she
played around her friends.

As the song
started, Stephanie closed her eyes and began the link routine.  Control
her breathing, visualize a safe starting ground, check her senses--all the
steps typically taught to beginning students.

“Okay, so my last
run I scored a 7.8 degree of difficulty,” she recalled. “Tonight we are going
for 9.0 or bust, girl,” Stephanie said in an exhilarated voice.

Stephanie brushed
her fingers through her hair touching the neuroband interface.

“This isn't your
old neuro,” she reassured herself. “Straight from lab, this ought to melt some
time off the clock.”

The coaster was
one of the few things that challenged her.  The free-form track made her a
better driver.  You either drove in the moment or it drove you, usually
off a cliff.

A soft voice in
the coaster chair began to count down from ten seconds. “…Nine, eight, seven,
six....”

A symphony of
light sprang to life all around her, instantly transporting Stephanie to the
top of an arctic mountain peak.

The voice
continued, “five, four, three...”

Her coaster chair
had transformed into single rider sled. Its sides were covered in ice which
stretched down to the steel blades supporting the cart.  Stephanie felt a
shiver run down her spine as her body felt the drastic temperature change.

The last words of
the computer voice sounded “…two, one, launch.”

The coaster shot
off the cliff like a cannon and into a near ninety degree dive straight
down.  A blast of arctic air filled her lungs nearly suffocating her for a
moment.  The rails of the sled clanked off the side of the mountain,
knifing through snowbanks without resistance.

Stephanie quickly
regained her composure and began steering the coaster. The amount of sensory
information was like nothing she had experienced before. It was as if she had
been looking through a pair of dirty, half-broken glasses, then given a laser
telescope to see through instead.

Using extremely
fine movements she steered the coaster down the mountain.  A jagged
looking rock formation was nearing the sled too quickly.  She slammed the
steering controls to opposite sides throwing the sled into a three hundred
sixty degree rotation.  Like a basketball player putting a spin on a
defender, Stephanie deftly maneuvered the sled around the rock formation.

Just as she had
righted the sled and was starting to feel a bit cocky, it dropped down a bit
and struck a large snow drift head on.  Luckily, the sled blasted through
the pile leaving only a biting feeling of snow-burn across her face.

“Ow!” Stephanie
howled, “that really burns.”

Barely having time
to wipe the slush from her face, she was forced to focus on a new obstacle
quickly approaching. A fissure in the mountain slope ahead completely wound its
way across the terrain.  Stephanie scoured the icy slop looking for
something to help her cross it.

“There we go,” she
smiled as another jagged rock formation approached. “When you can't go around,”
Stephanie steered the sled directly at the snow packed boulders. “You go up!”

Pulling back hard
on the controllers, the front of the sled lifted up off the ground.  The
sled cracked into the snow pile, its rails screaming as they ground on the rock
and snow. Then with a jump, the sled launched into the air.

Stephanie took in
the wonder of the flight and the beauty of the arctic vista as she soared
through the air.  She couldn't, however, help but notice the difficulty
indicator.  It was a number that floated along beside her, untouched by
the events of the ride.  It dimly flashed the number 8.7.

“Eight point
seven!” she thought to herself. “I’m just starting. Wow!

As the sled arced
across the fissure, Stephanie resisted the temptation to look down. Then unable
to keep her curiosity in check, she peeked below her sled seeing only an
opening plummeting into darkness.

“Not something I
want explore,” she mused.

The sled began to
descend.  Stephanie compensated by angling it up like a champion ski
jumper preparing for a landing.  Her nerves seemed to be getting to her
more than usual.  There was something about this coaster ride that was
really starting to bother her.

With a controlled
crash, the sled landed across the fissure and continued its race down the
mountainside.  Stephanie struggled, only slightly, to recover her steering,
regaining some confidence in the ride.

The barren terrain
gave way to tall pines dotting the horizon.  Stephanie shook her hands out
quickly and prepared for some fast turning.  At first the maneuvering
around the trees was too easy, but that changed soon enough.  Clusters of
pines now filled the mountainside in front of her.  Dancing right then
left, she skillfully avoided what could have been disastrous collisions.

Stephanie yelped
as a tree branch cracked against the front of her sled, rolled up the
windshield, and caught her across the side of the face. Half-dazed from the
blow, she reached up to feel the side of her head. Looking at her hand,
Stephanie was conscious enough to realize something was bleeding. Moreover,
something was desperately wrong. Coasting was a game and this was far beyond a
game.

#

Ashley Quinn was
sticking halfway out of a computer bay when she recognized an alarm was
sounding. The alarm was coming from a part of the lab she hadn’t used in days,
making her response a bit lackadaisical.  Pushing the lift button, the
workstation rose back to floor level giving her a visual of the alarm.

“What do we have
here?” questioned Ashley with a puzzled look on her face.

Walking faster
toward the offending sound, she became more and more concerned.

“Oh, no!” Ashley
ran as she spotted the source of the alarm. “Computer, track the location of
alarm Alpha Five.”

A bland voice
replied, “Neuroband Alpha Five has been activated on Deck C, Observation Room
Two.”

“The Chiller…”
thought Ashley.  “Computer, what is the status of Neuroband Alpha Five?”
she continued.

“Neuroband Alpha
Five is currently connected to link thirty-five, designation recreation,”
reported the computer.

Ashley nervously
tapped her leg as she quickstepped over to the neuroband storage
compartment.  Rapidly waving her arm past the security scanner, she yanked
the door of the compartment open.  Her fingertips ran across the
compartments inside, each one holding a dozen black cases, until she found the
last one.  There, in the fifth slot down, rested an empty case holder.

Thinking back to
last week, it didn’t take Ashley long to put two and two together.

“No,” she
muttered, “Steph wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t…” Ashley continued in muddled
speech as she half ran, half stumbled over to the control booth.

Sitting down in
the control chair, Ashley opened a black case that was attached to her
belt.  Taking the neuroband out, she slipped around her head faster than a
gunslinger.  The glass panel in front of her tilted up for comfortable
reach as her hands flew across it.  Within seconds she pulled up a visual
on the screen of an arctic mountain.  Leaning back in her chair, she
closed her eyes, skipped her own warm-up routines, and jumped straight into
neurolink.

When she opened
her eyes, Ashley was in a small sled at the top of an extremely tall mountain.
A voice was counting down from ten as arctic winds blew fiercely across the
mountaintop. It was the start of a game.

“Oh geeze,
Stephanie,” Ashley panicked as she calculated the deadly mix of a test
neuroband and the game. “You’ve no idea.”

The countdown had
nearly run down, but before the sled launched Ashley leaped out of the
seat.  Like an Olympic diver, she dove through the air down the
mountainside. Ashley concentrated as she continued to free fall, focusing on
the terrain ahead.  Her thoughts coalesced into a picture of military
grade headgear. From seemingly thin air appeared a helmet with a protective
visor.  Ashley grabbed the free floating headgear and strapped it
on.  Her fall was taking her on a course to impact the ground in
seconds.  Again focusing her thoughts, Ashley pictured a hoverbike, just
like the one she rode as a teen. Popping out of thin air, a red and silver
machine appeared.  Two large silver discs were mounted underneath the bike
at the front and back.  A cushioned red seat balanced in the middle of the
contraption.

Ashley grabbed on
to the bike and swung herself into the seat.  Punching a button on the
steering bars, the bike sent a shockwave underneath it, roaring to life.
Turning the bike away from the mountain, it shot forward narrowly avoiding the
ground below. Once she was soaring on a level plane, Ashley tapped the helmet
she wore.  A grid appeared in the visor with two blinking lights.
The light in the back was moving rapidly toward the first.

Tapping the other
side of the helmet Ashley yelled above the roar of the engines, “Stephanie,
Stephanie listen to me. I’m coming to get you. Do you hear me?”

Silence was the
only response she heard, silence, and more silence.

“Stephanie, quit
your course!” Ashley yelled. “Don’t race, turn off, stop your run!” she cried
desperately.  Straining to hear a voice, any sound, Ashley listened, but
heard only silence.  Without seeing Stephanie, she wouldn't be able to send
her a headset to hear. Even at this rate, the odds of reaching Stephanie before
she lost control were poor.

#

Stephanie’s sled
continued to rocket down the hill. Nearing the bottom, she could see a large
crater in the distance. Blinking her eyes and squinting, she tried to clear her
head and get a better look ahead.  The ice that covered the mountainside
was not present around the mouth of the crater. In fact, what at first looked
like fog was more likely steam rising out from within.

Frantically, Stephanie
looked for a way to avoid the path ahead.  The terrain was void of
anything that could be used as a ramp.  She couldn't swerve around the
crater, it was too large and she was going too fast.  In the end,
Stephanie knew there was only one direction this course would take her.

“I guess we're on
fast track to the core,” she yelped while bracing herself for an impending
jump.

The rails
growled as they hit the mouth of the crater and shot into the air. Leaving the
safety of ground it arced upward, until gravity pulled the sled down, straight
into the crater.

Positioned above
the crater, Stephanie could now see bridges of ice crisscrossing the crater at
various levels.  Jamming the controllers up and to the right, she fought
to glide the sled toward the nearest bridge.

“Come on, you can
do it,” Stephanie scolded the sled It became readily apparent, however, that it
was traveling too fast and at the wrong angle to land on the bridge.

Instead of landing on the
bridge, the impact shattered the ice bridge into thousands of
pieces.   Shockwaves of ice rippled through the sled’s skeleton
pounding Stephanie's body.

“Ahhh,” she
screamed.  The pain was intense, what was going on?  Her arm.
She couldn't use her left arm.

Stephanie fought
off the waves of mind numbing pain. Her sled continued to plummet down the
gigantic crater indirectly striking bridges.  Darkness surrounded her fall
with the exception of an orangish brown light beginning to emanate from below
her. Summoning what resolve she could, Stephanie used the right controller to
steer. Continuing to plunge downward, she narrowly avoided a direct strike from
another ice sheet.         Within a few
seconds the sled had exited the crater and emerged in vast underground
area.  The orangish light had grown very bright now, and moreover, its
beams carried a scorching amount of heat.  Stephanie was plunging straight
toward a sea of molten lava.

#

Ashley’s mind
rolled in turmoil, locked up by the fear of what could happen to
Stephanie.  She should be able to think of something. She invented this
confounded device, why couldn't she think of a faster way to travel?

Just then, a
memory flashed through her mind of a missile test she observed back on Earth.
Instantly, she conjured a picture of the missile in her mind and brought her
will to summon it.

Like the hoverbike
before it, a white missile now blasted through the air.  Quickly
accelerating, the missile streaked forward powered by flames.  Ashley then
pictured a lasso in her mind, one that roped around the missile.  In
milliseconds a long lasso had roped the missile and she grabbed onto it with
all her might.

The targeting
window in her visor now showed her closing in amazingly fast on Stephanie’s
position.  Just as her hopes rose, however, they were immediately dashed
as the second blip, Stephanie's blip, disappeared from her visor.

“No!” cried Ashley
in heartbreak as she reached her left hand out toward the distance.

Fighting back the
tears something in her mind clicked, a thought that had never occurred to her
before.  In that instant, bringing all her focus together in one single
thought, Ashley hacked her own creation.  Within the confines of this
simulation, she stopped time.

#

Aghast with her
situation, Stephanie somehow caught sight of the floating number still flying
up and to her right.

“It can't be!”
Stephanie exclaimed. “But how?”  The number display was set at ten point
four. “You can't go past ten. That's impossible.” she bellowed.

A terror ripped
through her now.  Ten point four, her left arm was useless, molten lava
ahead...

Stephanie’s ability to
feel the world around her seemed to crash.

“What?”
she thought to herself.  Looking around, her senses were still
intact.  In fact, she was still intact.  It was her entire world that
had stopped around her.  She sat in her sled, which was motionless and
hanging in midair. Slowly scanning her surroundings, nothing was moving.
The steam stopped rising, the lava stopped flowing, everything was
motionless.... except, what was that noise?

A loud thundering
boom seemed to be rising in volume, as the crater began to shake.  Before
she could scream, a large white missile shot past her and into the lava
below.  Following behind, someone was falling toward her, gliding down the
crater while holding the reins of a parachute.  Stephanie couldn't believe
it.

“Ashley?” she
questioned in disbelief.

Steering her
parachute to the sled, Ashley hopped down on the hood right in front of her
stepdaughter.

“I'm just the
cavalry, missy,” Ashley replied. “You are going to need better reinforcements
than me when your father hears about this.”

Missing the whole
point, Stephanie unexpectedly gave her stepmother a firm hug. There might have
even been a few tears rolling down the cheeks of the ice-princess.

Ashley looked down
into the lava below.  Closing her eyes, focusing her thoughts, she
uttered, “You are not real. Be gone.”

The illumination
of everything around them started to dim.  Stephanie saw her stepmother
shaking her head ever so slightly as she gave her a strange look.  The
world turned pitch black.

Opening her
eyes and looking around, Stephanie found herself safely tucked away in her
coaster chair.  She felt her face, it wasn't bleeding.  Her skin, was
still pale white, though not blistered.  Even her left arm moved without
pain.

“Whoa,” was the
only expression she had the energy left to manage. She wasn’t sure what had
happened.  As the pounding of her heart slowed, she came to one
conclusion. If Ashley hadn’t intervened something terrible would have
happened.  She was happy to leave that result unanswered.

*

Chapter 5   Awkward Reunions

Hearing the
incoming call, Jonathon Quinn reluctantly stopped the quiz.

“One moment,
class, while I get this,” he interjected while walking over to his imaginary
desk.

Reaching out to
the panel, he touched the beeping light and it stopped. In its place an image
of his wife appeared.  Before she could speak, John hit the privacy tab on
the panel limiting the audio to those on the call.

“John we have a
bit of a problem,” Ashley started, then paused.

“What's up?” John
replied in a relaxed tone.

Rolling her
shoulders ever so slightly Ashley continued, “The computers in the lab are
running a looped routine that I cannot stop.  I'm afraid the loop will
spread to other systems soon causing random system crashes.”

“A loop?” John
replied looking perplexed. “What happened?  Can we shut it down?”

Ashley moved back
to the main computer control panel, and pressed a combination of illuminated
spaces.

“Still no luck.
I'm afraid hacking into the computer from my neuroband may have thrown the lab
systems into overload.”

“What are you
doing hacking into your own systems?” he replied looking confused, and slightly
concerned. “And from your neuroband? How did you do that?”

“It's ok now.”
Ashley quickly diverted his line of questioning, “We can talk about that soon
enough.  Right now I need to get back to working on stopping this.”

“Is there
something I can do?” John inquired.

“I've alerted the
captain,” she said briskly. “She should be here any minute with Glennay. I'm
not sure they can help… I might put a call into Dom.  He might be able to
think this through.”

Jonathon flinched
a bit, hearing that name, but not enough to notice.

“Yeah, maybe.” he
replied in neutral tone.

“Take care of Jess
for me, please John.  Oh, and if you see Stephanie, hold off on talking to
her until I can get out of this mess.”

“Hold off on
what?”  John asked. “And why do I need to take care of Jessica? Just what
is going on?”

“Just stay cool
and don't start getting into a rant until I can be there,” Ashley finished.

“Okay, I guess,”
he agreed, now even more confused. “Good luck and keep me posted.”

The screen flashed
and then went blank.

“Sorry about that
class,” he apologized, “let’s get back to our game.  I think it’s time for
our final question!  Looking at the board it looks like Benjiro is our
champion today.  Are you ready for the final trivia question Benjiro?”

#

“Incoming call
from the U.S.S. Columbus,” announced a vidcomm in the lab. “Dr. Ashley Quinn.”

Looking up from
his workstation, Dominic Andreou shifted his position and half-smiled.

“So, she calls
after all,” he whispered in low tones.  “I'll take it in my study,”
directed the man as he took off his white overcoat and wrapped it around the
back of a lab chair.  Moving at a slower than expected pace for a call on
hold, he walked across the science lab, through a side door.

“Lights, medium,”
he stated walking into the study adjacent to the main lab of the H.S.
Argo.  Sitting down in his favorite chair, he slightly adjusted his shirt
and tie.  Then nodding his head approvingly he directed the computer,
“Start the call.”

“Dominic,” greeted
Dr. Quinn. “Dom…” she reiterated as she smiled, “hello.”

“To what do I owe
the pleasure of your call?” replied Dr. Andreou.

“Dom, I need your
help,” replied Ashley, as her smile faded and was replaced by concern. “My
systems over here are running a loop sequence that I can't break.  I'm
afraid it’s going to spread system wide Dom.” Her voice sounded increasingly
worried with each word.

“A loop?” the man
restated. “How in the world did you get locked into a loop, Ashley?  We
learned fifty ways to avoid such things back at the academy, or were you
sleeping in class that day?”

“Yeah, uh,” she
hesitated, “long story.  I certainly wasn't planning to loop.  More
importantly, I've tried every algorithm I can think of. Nothing seems to be
unlocking the system.  Can you help Dom, please?”

“Of course, of
course,” he assured her. “Well I can't walk over there and see what you have,
regrettably,” he continued.

“I can't risk the
loop spreading to the Argo with a direct connection,” he pondered.  “I'll
set up an isolated workstation and we copy the loop over to it.  I might
be able to break the code from there.”

Ashley quickly
nodded her head in agreement, then paused. “Wait, the loop, ah, Dom it's
running an experiment I'm not able to share. Can we come at this another way?”

“I'm good Ashley,”
he replied, “but I can't apply meta-mathematics to a loop code I can't
read.  I'm afraid I can't help you otherwise.”

Tapping her hand
repeatedly on her workstation, Ashley gritted her teeth and agreed. “Ok then,
you are going to have to nuke this code after helping me, Dom.  I'm pretty
sure this falls under the ‘penalty of something bad will happen if you share
this’ clause that I signed off on. So consider yourself deputized.”

“Certainly,” he
replied. “Let me initialize this system and then I’ll send you the port for a
connection.”  Dominic moved his chair over to a second workstation.
Expertly tapping, he brought up a series of windows, rotating them and throwing
them around on the virtual screen at a dizzying pace.

“Access codes
enabled. Port will be 5150,” he relayed to Ashley. “Transmit your loop when
ready.”

“Packaging the
code and preparing for transmit,” she replied.

A smaller separate
window appeared on Dr. Andreou’s workstation.  Working the larger windows
with his left hand in large motions, he deftly flicked through the tiny
directory with his right.  A list of file names ran down the window as he
thumbed through.  Alternating his focus almost indiscriminately, the
scientist stopped on a directory, tapped it twice and then continued once the
download bar had reached full.  Reaching a file named Neuroband, he almost
brought attention to himself by the reaction on his face, but recovered and
downloaded the directory.

“There, I have it
all,” Dominic confirmed.  “Keep the comm link active and I’ll alert you
when I find a stop,” he finished.

“Ok,” Ashley
paused, “and thanks Dom. I know it’s not easy…” she didn’t continue.

Dominic maneuvered
the workspace with a keen focus. It would take someone standing beside him to
notice the cringe that struck him as Ashley broke off her sentence.

Streams of
equations ran parallel down the main window of his workstation as Dominic
Andreou looked for anomalies.

“Very impressive
work, Dr. Quinn,” he sub-vocalized as he scanned the formulas.  “I’d love
to see the tech this makes.”  Rubbing his eyes, he waved his hand across
the screen scattering the windows like a boulder dropped in a stream.

Walking away from
the workstation, Dominic wrestled with his own thoughts.

“What
are you doing?” he questioned himself. “You are not
really thinking of breaking this loop. Just let it run its course and that will
be one less ship to worry about.”

Clinching his
fists he turned to a supply cabinet next to the workstation.

“You’ll
never see her again,” he thought to himself. “There’s time
yet, you’ll find a way to get her off that ship.”

Tracing a pattern
across the security screen, Dominic unlocked the cabinet.  Reaching in, he
took a small rectangular case from a hidden compartment.  Opening the
case, the scientist pulled out a modified Ksync from inside.  Then taking
a deep breath, he walked back to the workstation and pressed the Ksync to the
screen, attaching it.  Once more, he brought several screens up on the
display.  With a touch of the device, however, the formulas racing across
the screen slowed.  Like a log jam in a raging river, the mathematical
symbols spun and hooked together.  Within seconds the stream of formulas
had slowed to a near standstill.

“There you are!”
pointed the doctor excitedly. “You can’t hide from my cipher.” Tapping the
screen over a symbol that spun in a circle at the center of the jam, the
scientist drug it off to the side.  He then circled the symbol with his
finger leaving it in a prison of sorts.

“That should do
it, Ashley,” he uttered after re-opening the comm link.  “I’ve isolated
your troublemaker.  Give me a moment to repackage this and I’ll send the
solution back to you.”

“I can’t thank you
enough, Dominic,” replied Ashley in a sigh of relief.

Looking down at
his workstation, Dominic realized that, in his furor to break the code, he had
left the door open to the files he'd copied. He had to quickly think of how he
could close this door without anyone realizing it had been opened.

“Ashley… Ashley
I’m afraid there’s one bit of bad news,” the scientist started. “You’re going
to have to reboot your systems after loading this code for it work.
Otherwise you’ll risk letting this anomaly work its way back into the
system.  One more thing, you need to do this immediately. I can’t
guarantee how long it will stay contained.”

“Understood,” she
replied.

Uploading the code
and reinitializing the system, Ashley quickly worked the screen with exquisite
grace.

Turning her chair
quickly, she warned her ship’s captain. “We have to shut it all down and
reboot. It’s not an option.  Can you coordinate with operations?
I’ve never done this live and I have no idea how far the code spilled into the
ship’s systems… anything could happen.”

“That’s not very
reassuring, doctor,” Captain Sterling replied, “and this just as I was doing so
well at cutting back on the spirits.”

“Glennay, can you get
the responder teams ready?” directed the captain to tech officer Mercedes.

“Right away,
Captain,” she affirmed.

Ashley brought up
the ship’s master override codes.  She shook her head in disbelief of the
situation.  Hacking into her computer systems with the neuroband was a
pretty amazing feat, in fact when this was all over she was going to have to
figure out exactly how she did that.  For now, the leap of faith that had
protected her stepdaughter, was now putting everyone on board in danger.
This had better work.

Looking over at
the captain and crossing her fingers with her left hand, she activated the
reboot. One by one the ship’s systems rebooted. One by one, Ashley inwardly
breathed a sigh of relief.  Two systems were left, orbital thrusters and internal
power.

“Orbital
thrusters, reboot complete,” she commented as her voice held her last bits of
tension. “No…” she uttered in disbelief as an error light replaced the reboot
light on her screen under internal power. The patterns from the error codes
seemed to hover in her eyes like a fading roadmap, as the entire room went
black.

Chapter 6   Space Ghost

John stood in the
darkness for a moment.  His thoughts had been on how to transition the
class from a review to the next lesson, but that was cut short.

“Apparently,
the loop didn’t get unlooped,” he thought to
himself.  Taking the Ksync from his belt, he held it in front of him and
commanded, “Lantern light.”

A nifty little
gadget, the Ksync was short for Computer Synchronization.  The business
name was fairly self-explanatory of the device itself.  The hand held unit
was able to link with other workstations and maintain a current profile across
systems.

The device was
made popular however by its functionality.  It was nicked named the
“Kitchen Sink” referring to the old adage “Everything but the 'Kitchen Sink'
thrown in.”  Many of the basic functions that you might need as a colonist
were included in a Ksync: lantern, comm unit, emergency signal, and a
self-defense charge, were just some of its more practical features. As John
thought of it, the Ksync was a modern day Swiss Army Knife, and then some.

A large diffused
light spread outward from the Ksync, illuminating his office.  The
classroom that had been provided by the computer via neuroband had disappeared.
Moving to his vidcomm panel, John tried activating ship communications.
After several attempts, he uttered in disgust.

Holding his Ksync
up to his face he directed it to switch channels, “Sentinel band.”

The device beeped
indicating it had activated the direction.

“Quinn to any
active Sentinel, anyone reading me?” He hoped someone could receive his
signal.  The odds were next to non-existent, however, at least as long as
the ship’s external power systems were functional. The energizers that power
the magnetic shields around the ship are great for repelling micrometeoroids,
but play havoc with handheld comm devices.  The good news was no personal
communications equaled a working spaceship on the outside, at least in theory.

Moving to the
office door, he switched his Ksync over to a directional light pointing toward
the corridor. Instinctually, he stepped as though the door would automatically
open. Much to his dismay, he smacked nose first into the unwavering door.

“Ouch!” he yelped
in pain. “You’ve got to be kidding me.  Lights out and power out! This is
going to be a treat.”

Stepping to the
side of the door, John opened the emergency door controls and pulled the manual
door release.  Nothing happened.

“What?” he said in
surprise. “C’mon, release.  You know ya want to.” He seemed to be talking
to the release lever as he repeatedly pulled it.

“Somehow the doors
have been locked, something must have triggered the emergency containment
system as well,” he mused to himself.

Jonathon shook his
head and rubbed his hand over his face in frustration.

“Ok,
comm is out, Ksync is out, door is stuck.” He ran over the
list of problems in his mind. “What do we have left?”

Examining the
ventilation opening he shook his head. “Well either they are making those
pretty small these days, or I need to cut back on dessert tubes.”

Rubbing his thumb
and index finger over his temples, giving his mind a chance to think, John
stopped as he touched the neuroband around his forehead. He paused as an idea
seemed to be gaining approval.

“She should still
have it on,” he stated to himself. “She’s always forgetting to take it off.”

Going over to his
desk, John sat down in his office chair. He put his Ksync down on his desk and
leaned back in his chair a bit. A calm look settled on his face as he whispered
something inaudibly under his breath.  Concentrating, focusing his
thoughts, he tried to bring up an image of his daughter Jessica.  He
traced a path from his office to their quarters, passing through imaginary
doors before arriving at the home's entrance.  Visualizing the interior,
John walked through the front door and into the living room.  He continued
to move through his family’s quarters, now going to his daughter’s room.

“Now,
for the hard part,” he thought to himself. “Focus on
Jessica, you were just speaking with her. Hear her voice, see what she wore,
think of what she said. You can do this.”

His Neuroband was
the most advanced of its kind.  He wore one of two updated versions, his
wife and inventor of the device, wore the other.  There had been many
versions, ten alpha bands, ten beta bands, until this one proved itself.
He would now try and do what three weeks of crash training aboard the U.S.S.
Columbus had not perfected--projecting his thoughts to another.

With computer
assistance, entire rooms have been transmitted successfully to multiple
people.  Sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and with some success even a
sense of touch had been convincingly conveyed.  To do this without a
computer, though, create original thought and send it to another, was mostly
science fiction.  It wouldn’t be for long though, not if John could help
it.

Three levels down
and hundreds of feet away his daughter was alone and in the dark, likely
trapped just as he was. He would not leave her there alone.  This idea,
harnessed to the power of a parent’s love, would crystallize his
thoughts.  Thoughts that were about to turn the impossible into the
possible.

#

Jessica looked
around, the entire classroom had disappeared.  Lights that should be on in
her room were off.  The only source of light was Wispy hovering in the
room, glowing a deep red.

“Woohoo!” Jessica
cheered, “we have a snow day in the making, and I can feel it.  Now I just
have to get the lights on.”

Jessica was always
fond of her father’s stories from his childhood.  He once told her about
something called a snow day.  This was a day the sky dropped so much
frozen water that no one could get anywhere and he wouldn’t have to go to
school.  She never had a snow day, not where she lived at least.
That didn’t stop her from wanting a snow day though, ever since she heard about
it.

Moving to the
glass panel by her bedroom door, Jessica waved her hand across it several
times.

“Lights, lights,”
she repeated. “Wispy, I can’t get the lights to work. What’s going on?”

Wispy floated over
to her and gave her a nudge as if to comfort her.  Jessica gave the
floating companion a hug.  She then moved to the door exit.  Before
Jessica stepped through the doorway, however, she stopped realizing the door
wasn’t moving.

“Whoa,” she
squeaked, “wouldn’t want to walk into that.”

Turning back, she
hopped onto her bed. Wispy settled in beside her on a pillow.

“Wispy, what’s
going on? I’m scared,” she asked in a soft voice.

The lights from
Wispy flickered in various colors.  Jessica watched her friend and replied
as if she understood what it said.

“Ok, I know, I’m
sure mom is working on it.  She and Captain Sterling, will figure this
out. Do you want to play a game while we wait?”

Again the lights
of her companion flickered in various hues.

“What kind of
game?” Jessica replied. “Well, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

Just as Jessica
was about to ponder what kind of game they could play, she noticed another
light in her room. This wasn’t from Wispy and she was a bit confused and
frightened upon noticing it.

The light seemed
to be an image almost, fuzzy, and hard to figure out.  Slowly, the image
seemed to focus, much like her holo castle when its projector would go out of
whack and her mother would nudge it with her elbow.

“Hi Jess,”
comforted a voice, sounding awfully like her father.

Jessica jumped
away on her bed, nearly squishing Wispy in the process.

“Father, um… how
did you get here?” she shrieked, struggling to keep her voice from dropping.

“It’s okay, Jess,”
he returned. “I’m not really here right now.  I am sort of, well, think of
how you see me at school.  I’m still in my office and I wanted to make
sure you were okay.”

“But we’re not in
school,” she replied, reaching up to her forehead she realized that her NEUBI
was still on her head. “Oh, I see, you are using the school computer. What’s
going on dad? Why is the power out?”

“Yes, well,
sort-of,” John paused before continuing, “I think there was a slight problem
with something your mother was working on.  She was telling me about it
during our quiz.  Anyway, your mom was working on it and I’m sure she will
have it fixed soon.”

Jessica seemed to
relax a bit. “Oh, yeah, I remember you put the game on pause,” she
recalled.  “I almost forgot you were talking to Mom, but I was thinking of
the last question.”

Scooting back
across her bed, Jessica reached out to give her father a hug.  For a
moment, she could almost feel the hug he gave her. That was a bit strange, but
she didn’t think much of it.

“Jess, I want you
to hang tight,” her father directed her. “I need to get in touch with your Mom
and get an update.  I’ll get back in touch with you soon.  Be tough
for me, alright? I’m sure Wispy has plenty of fun things you can play until we
get this worked out.”

The image of her
father faded, and the only light in the room was once again her faithful
friend.  Jessica felt a strange sense of loneliness starting to return to
her, but before it could take hold Wispy had fluttered in front of her bouncing
up and down.

Putting those
thoughts away she smiled. “So, you ornery ball of light, where were we?”

#

Sitting up,
Jonathon wiped away what seemed to be streams of perspiration from his
forehead. He felt a bit groggy, like he had held his breath underwater for a
few seconds too long. Blinking his eyes, he focused on his surroundings.
The room was still lit only by the Ksync.  He picked it up and looked at
the time stamp.  Just a few minutes had passed, it seemed as though it was
much longer.

“Well,
it looks like I need to find a way to reach Ashley,” he
thought to himself.  “Do you have it in ya to go another nine rounds?”

In limited
testing, he had been able to use the neuroband without a computer aid in close
proximity.  Ashley was better at this than him, but she hadn't reached out
more than a room or two herself.  The whole process was discovered by
accident while testing the new prototype.  The computer had run into a
small loop that Ashley was able to remedy.  At the same time, he continued
sending his thoughts without knowing the computer was down.  When she told
him that his thoughts were coming in from the next room regardless, the two of
them had spent the next few hours mulling over the, almost scary,
ramifications.

Ashley had been
testing the neurobands for years now.  Like many government projects, this
was earmarked for possible military use and received more than full
funding.  If it hadn't been for the MARC program and her reassignment,
there was no telling where the project would be now. They wouldn't have grown
close that much was for certain.  They wouldn’t have married, and he would
still be searching for Liz.

Jonathon pushed
his trip down memory lane to the side and refocused himself on the business at
hand.

He had to open a
drawer manually on his desk.  From it, he pulled a clear tube of liquid at
least a quart in size.  With several large gulps he drank the cool water,
setting the remainder on his desk.

“Let's get this
on,” he said out loud. “Ashley I hope this impresses you a bit because I'm
going to have a serious headache afterward.”

“
So... she was wearing her hair up today in one of those wrap hairstyle deals,”
John thought to himself as he tried to conjure up a recent picture of his
wife.  Leaning back he started to go through his relaxation routines –
when the lights came on.

“Oh thank god,” he
let out a sigh of relief.  “Yes!” he pumped his fist in the air.

Turning to his
comm panel he brought up two screens, one for the science lab and the other for
Jessica's room.

“Hey you two!”
John announced. “Looks like someone put the hamsters back in the treadmills to
get us some power.”

Jessica waved and
smiled at her father while Ashley swiped the panel on her workstation and gave
him the one second sign with her index finger.

“So what kind
trouble were you two going to get into?” John directed his attention to his
daughter. Grabbing onto Wispy, Jessica swiped off the light switch to her room.
She then took the ball of light and flung it with all her might up and into a
corner of the room.  Wispy bounced off the ceiling and ricocheted, her
color changing and flashing with each bounce off of a wall.

“So I guess I'll
call that, fling a firefly,” he decided.

Jessica turned the
lights back on while nodding in approval.

Having finished
what she was doing, Ashley faced the vidcomm screen.

“Luckily, those
redundant systems finally paid for themselves,” Ashley started.  “It took
a few minutes for the back-up to reboot, but it had a clean boot unlike the
primaries.”

“Yeah, gotta love
technology,” John responded sarcastically.  “That's why I leave all those
gizmos to you Hun.”

“Daddy,” Jessica
chimed in, “how did your ghost visit me?  That was great, can you do that
again?”  She jumped up and down as she asked, still holding Wispy in her
hands.

“Well... uh Jess,
maybe not so soon,” he fumbled with his words. “I have to talk to mommy a bit
about Mr. Ghost before he can visit again.”

Ashley had a
puzzled look on her face as she inquired, “Mr. Ghost, who's Mr. Ghost?”

Jonathon shrugged
his shoulders a bit and cocked his head slightly. “Well, we need to have
another one of those 'wow isn't this special the computer power was off,' talks
I think. If you liked the last one, this is going be a blockbuster sequel.”

Her face shifting
from puzzlement to understanding, Ashley replied with a single word, “Oh.”

Chapter 7   Family Night

He wasn't sure
what he was going to say to Stephanie. She was reminding him more and more each
day of her mother; the good and the bad.  If she even came close to going
down the same path as Liz, he wasn't going to be able to take it.

The only thing he
was sure of was that he wasn't going to get into it with her right now.
The stargazing event for tonight was a few minutes away. John knew if one word
was said about the coasters, the last place they would end up would be gazing
at stars out the port windows.

“Five minutes
until we head out,” Jonathon reminded his family.

Opening up a
beaten and battered metal case that was sitting on the family room table, he
waved off the dust that floated out.  Inside the case in fuzzy velvet
slots were several odd rectangular devices.  Each one had two long cylinders
with a reflective piece on the ends held together by a connector of sorts.

“Just like me
pappy left me,” he said in a peculiar voice.

“Where in the
world did he get these?” commented Ashley.

“What in the world
are these?” added Stephanie with a hint of sarcasm.

“You are looking
at five pairs of genuine naval issued binoculars,” relayed John, as he
continued in the same peculiar tone. “These will provide us an authentic look
at the stars tonight.  You'll see things the way our ancestors did a
hundred years ago. They were passed down to me by my grandfather, who inherited
them from his grandfather.”

Handing them out
one at a time, each family member received a pair.  Jessica put them up to
her eyes immediately, then flipped them and looked out the other end.
Stephanie found something to wipe her pair off with and Ashley was the only one
to take him seriously.

“Do we really have
to use these?” Stephanie mused. “We are going beyond our typical nerdy family
appearance if that's possible.”

"You have to
humor your father," Ashley interjected in a vain attempt to avoid a family
argument.  Out of instinct, Stephanie jumped on the opportunity to rebuke
her stepmother.

"You can be
the butt of jokes at the star watching if you want," she jided in return.

One quick glance
from her father, with a look atypical of his normal demeanor, made Stephanie
reconsider her current tone.

“Fine,” she
conceded, “but if Kim shows up, I'm looking through her Pocket Hubble.”
Stephanie grabbed the binoculars. She nervously twirled
the device in her hands trying to break the gaze of her father. She didn't know
why Ashley always set her on fire. Her stepmother was always nice to her - heck
she just saved her from a freak accident. It all came down to her voice. Every
time she said something nice, did something nice, tried to help her, Ashley was
only a reminder. She was a reminder of the person who was missing in her life.

The family packed
up their binoculars and headed out to the main hall.  The corridors of the
U.S.S. Columbus were of decent size.  During busy times of the day though,
it could feel like a one lane hallway leading into a high school cafeteria at
lunch. The port observation room wasn't too far of a walk, just down the
corridor and a few levels up the lift.

Entering the dimly
lit room, they saw several families already gathered.  Younger kids
already formed play groups and the older kids started to find their niche areas
to gather. Stephanie started to head off toward a group of teens she knew, but
stopped after a step and stayed with the family.  Jessica, on the other
hand, went right over to a friend of hers and started looking at her through
the binoculars.

“You have two
great big beady eyes Mary!” she exclaimed. “Have you been bitten by a giant
space bug?”

The two started to
giggle and Jessica let Mary look through the binoculars at her.

Meanwhile, Ashley
had found her way over to Glennay who was exploring several flavors of dips at
the hors d'oeuvres table.  Jonathon wasn't sure if she had conveniently
left him alone with his daughter or if it was just chance.

“Scratch
that. Women don't leave conversation to chance,”
he joked in his head. “So this must be her way of clearing the road to talk
with Stephanie.”

John gave his
daughter a quick hug with his right arm, which he was sure she would hate, but
too bad.

“Stephanie,” he
motioned toward an empty part of the observation area, “head over there and
let’s test out those fine binoculars.”

Half-smiling, in a
great, let’s-not-do-that-sort-of-way, Stephanie walked over to the window with
her father.

Jonathon looked
out to the stars for a moment as if he was hoping to find a helpful answer to a
question. Putting on a transparent smile, he slowly turned back to his daughter
and asked. “Do you remember the last time we saw your mother?”

Stephanie's
eyebrows went cockeyed and her face winched a bit in surprise.

“I mean, do you
remember that feeling, the last time we saw her?” e narrowed the question.

A slight tear
began to form in Stephanie's left eye as she managed a reply, “Yes,” while
turning her head slightly away from her father.

“So do I,” he
added simply.  “I don't have to explain more than this.  When you go
off your ments and I try talking with you, I get that feeling.
Confused, uncertain, wishing I could make it all better. Steph, do you
understand what I mean?”

Many more tears
rolled down her face now, but instead of turning away from her father, she
turned in to him and covered her face with his shoulder.

“I can't help it
sometimes,” she tried to say over her tears. “I just don't feel like a person
when I'm on them.”  Stephanie tried to wipe away some of the tears and
bring herself in.  “It's like the best part of me is cut off from
everything, everyone.  When I’m in class or studying, it doesn’t matter.
But when I’m with my friends I want to be funny, quick with the jokes, like
you.  When I’m off them, I'm alive and free, nothing is too hard, and
everything is easy for me.”

John brushed her
hair slightly while trying to comfort her.

“I know, Steph I
know,” he whispered. “I worry that you burn like a candle at both ends without
them. Today was just a game Steph, but it could have gone so wrong. That band
you had was missing a governor. It wasn’t meant for the coasters. If Ashley
hadn't jumped in, you could be in the medical bay, instead of here looking at
stars.  I don’t have the answer, I just know every time you stop your ments,
you are putting yourself at risk. Someday it could be others Steph...” he
trailed off.

The two of them
stood quietly until both had reached a silent resolution.

“ I guess the
moral of this story is, next time you borrow some of your stepmother's jewelry,
try not to pick out the old broken experimental version if you can,” John joked
with her.

Stephanie cocked
her head a bit and returned his smile as she gave him a loving punch in the
ribs.

“I better go to
the restroom,” she said.

“Sure,” he
replied.

Jonathon looked up
a bit and caught the gaze of his wife looking in his direction.  She gave
him an inquisitive look while raising a second beverage glass in his general
direction.  He walked over and accepted the drink, taking a hefty sip.

“So, a good cry,
or...” Ashley asked.

“Well, maybe, I
can't tell anymore,” John answered indecisively. “It's like you have to get
ahead of it, Ashley.  If I can help keep her even, everything goes just
great.  The second that she starts building up those feelings though, if
I'm busy, or just don't pick up on it, she can go from zero to a thousand
before you know it.  Then it's too late, and she's almost impossible to
talk back down until it runs its course.”

“I've been way too
busy too, John,” Ashley tried to console him.  “The build up to launch and
now the trip hasn't left us much family time.  It's going to be hard
getting settled in to Mars as well. Maybe we need to find a way to make it
happen.  We used to mandate Friday night as our 'game night. Maybe we can
figure out something like that again.”

John nodded his
head agreeing with her, “Yeah, hmmm, maybe.”

Their attention
was diverted from the conversation as excited voices from the far observation
windows grew more intense.  Walking over to get a look, a small crowd of
people from the room gathered to watch.  Several flashing lights were
coming in their direction.  Too bright for anything natural, these must be
spacecraft.  In fact, a half-dozen ore carriers were making their way back
to Earth from Mars.

Each carrier was
gargantuan in size compared to the U.S.S. Columbus.  Having been
manufactured in space, they were far easier to build in such a size.  Also
unlike the Columbus, these ships were powered by old fashioned rocket
fuel.   Their journey would take nearly six times as long as a
result.  Their successful supply of desperately needed resources had
spurred the last bit of funding required for the colonial phase of the MARC
program.

The crew waived as
the carriers passed by on their silent journey through space.  A solemn
lull at the observation windows was filled by a strange yelp from the room.

“Okay partners,”
John called in another odd voice, poorly reminiscent of the old west. “Gather
round here and take a look-see through my biiiinoculars! You ain't seen stars
until you've seen them the way my great-grandpappy seen them!”

Jessica sighed to
herself thinking, “Is there no escape from this kind of embarrassment?
Somebody save me.”

*

Chapter 8   Mysteries

Wispy lifted off
the charger and floated through Jessica’s bedroom.  Passing directly
through the family room and to the exit corridor, Wispy hovered along without
its typical waggle.  Pausing momentarily for the door to open, Wispy
headed out into the main corridor.

By now the crew
was used to seeing a floating ball of light roaming the halls.  The first
week though, it had sent many people jumping out of their shoes and summoning
security.  These days, the adults tended to ignore the floating ball of
light, and the kids would often chase after it down the halls hoping it would
change colors.  Most everyone knew Jessica's Wispy.

Tonight, the halls
were fairly empty. Most of the crew were gathered in one of the observation
rooms, or running primary system checks.  One family, apparently running
behind, passed by Wispy as they headed for the upper observation room.  A young
boy broke off from his family for a second, seeing Wispy, and ran
over.   He hopped up and down and made a few strange sounds, which
typically would be followed by Wispy turning a bright pink or other colors and
then flying away down the corridor.

Wispy, however,
continued hovering down the corridor, seeming to ignore the boy.  He
started to protest as if cheated out on a fun game, but before he could
continue his mother had roped him back over to the family. Within a few
moments, Wispy had reached one of several lifts located throughout the ship.

Taking the lift
down several levels, Wispy continued on its way, down another corridor.
At the end of the hall stood a door with a plaque reading, “Mid Ship
Access.”  A circular glass panel was set in the wall above the plaque like
every other doorway on the ship.  A few strands of energy sparked from
Wispy striking the panel, activating a code, and opening the doors.

The opened doors
revealed a small room with three passages.  One passage lead either right or
left of the entrance doors and a third was above. An open lift took passengers
to the next level, or if needed an old fashioned ladder ran up the wall.
Wispy required neither, however, and floated up to the ceiling and through the
passage above.  The passage ran for ten meters before opening into a
larger room.  A faint background hum, from the shield energizes, indicated
this room was near the exterior of the ship.  Great metallic beams, like
masts, ran perpendicular from the exterior wall of the room inward to the
center. Resembling trestles, they were latched in place by great couplings.

A mid-size
computer workstation was located in the room.  It was encased in
protective shielding typical of engineering workstations or those intended for
space work.  Wispy floated over to the workstation.  Much like the
door panel, strands of electricity sparked from the ball of light and struck
the control panel of the workstation.

A voice from the
workstation quickly stated, “Warning, safety protocols off,” before being
silenced.

After a minute of
sparking the panel Wispy paused, then headed back to the opening in the
floor.   Retracing its steps, it headed out the Mid Ship Access door
and down the hall.  A few minutes later it was up the lift and back to the
family quarters.  Inside, the rooms were empty, the Quinns still partaking
in the stargazing festivities above.

Wispy settled back
down on its charger, the glowing light surrounding it faded as it powered down.

#

Sleeping in was
one of those special times that happened once a week aboard the U.S.S.
Columbus, a hold-over from past decades when one day out of the week was
reserved for religious observance. Years ago, he would have been up early
getting ready for services, but that was a lifetime ago it seemed.  Now,
with the family up late last night, everyone would rise haphazardly through the
morning.

Ashley was already
up of course.  She didn't seem to have the need to sleep in, always on the
go.  Though having an empty bed when you wake up wasn't always desired, it
did have the benefit of usually resulting in a good cup of coffee and a bagel
waiting on the kitchen counter.   Neither of them had the time, nor
desire to do old fashioned cooking, but both of them had their
specialties.  Ashley's was breakfast and his was barbeque, or at least
what kind of simulated barbeque he could fix on board a spacecraft.

After getting
dressed, John headed to the kitchen area.  Ashley was holding her reader,
swiping her finger across the portable glass panel as she likely sifted through
the latest scientific journals.  Looking up at him she smiled.  With
a wave she pointed to the coffee and blueberry bagel sitting on a counter.

“Thanks, and good
morning,” he responded.

“What morning?”
Ashley countered, it's almost noon.

Jonathon looked at
the time on the wall, “I'm surprised you didn't kick me out of bed already.”

“I think yesterday
necessitated some extra rest, don't you?” she quipped. “The kids are already up
and out.  Jessica is out playing over at Mary's and Stephanie almost got
up before me.  I came close to putting a hold on visiting friends, but I
think your talk last night has her back on the right track. The readout on the
medicine cabinet has her taking ments again on schedule.”

John started to
raise an objection, but then stopped and nodded his head. “It's hard not to
reign things in, but that can backfire too. I have to think balance.  At
least that's what her overpriced doc told me back in D.C.”

Ashley moved over
to him and put her hand over his shoulder, “You know, we didn't get to talk
about this ghosting from yesterday.  Now that the kids are gone, what
happened?”

“Ghosting,” John
affirmed, “I guess that's a fitting way to describe it.”  He took a sip of
his coffee and started to walk around the kitchen's island counter.

“Well, I was
stuck inside my office and couldn't figure a way out of it.  The door was
jammed, Ksync wasn't working.  For some reason, I got the bright idea to
try to reach Jessica on her NEUBI.  We were right in the middle of class when
the power dropped, and knowing her, she was likely still wearing it.
There weren't any other options, so I tried the ridiculous, trying to reach her
through my neuroband.   I didn't think it was going to work, but
before I knew it, I was projecting myself down the hallways to her room.
The next think I know I was having a conversation with her and telling her
everything was O.K.”

John stopped
walking around the island, “Ashley she gave me a hug, and I could feel it, at
least for a moment.  She also was able to talk back to me. I mean she’s
not supposed to be able to do that on a NEUBI band, right?”

Ashley seemed to
be trying to wrap her mind around what he was saying.  She looked as
though she was going to ask a question, then stopped.  A second time a
question almost came out, then she stopped once more.

“So, she was able
to talk back to you and give you a touch that you felt. You're sure you felt
that, not imagined?” Ashley was able to get out.

“Yeah, I mean I
know the difference from our trials back in the lab,” John confirmed.

“Then there has to
be something else going on here, there's definitely some uncontrolled variables
that need teasing out,” Ashley started into her scientific speak.

“Well, it's almost
the opposite, Ashley,” John replied. “It's like I was more in control than
ever.  Things were focused, and I felt much more engaged than during our
trials.”

“Being cool under
pressure is your specialty,” Ashley bit her tongue. “Don't let it go to your
head.”

John pointed to
himself and raised his arms questioningly.

“I mean the
obvious change though would be your physical state, cool or not, your body is
pumping corticosteroids, like plasma out an engine vent,” she explained in her
own way. “It's a place to start at least.”

“OK, well if the
kids are away,” he danced his way over to her, “then the parents can
play.”  Putting down his coffee, John put his arms around Ashley and
pulled her slightly with a dance move.

Turning her head
back to him she added a condition, “Just so it's playing in the lab, with the
neurobands...”

John put on his
best look of denial and distraught before swinging her around again.

#

Kevin was locked
in combat with three Banshee Wailer drones.  The rest of the patrol had
been jumped and wiped out, except for Stephanie.  Two of the drones were
laying down crossing fire and Steph was about to run right through it. With
some quick thinking, he looped behind his aggressor and took it out with his
pulse cannon.  Throwing his drone into a dive, he punched the afterburners
while lining up an intercept course.  It was either Stephanie or him. One
of them wasn’t going to make it out…

The chirping of
his Ksync erased the dream he was having.  It was replaced by the darkness
of his bedroom.  Scrolling across the screen of his Ksync was a message, “I’m
outside in the hall. Come quick. Steph.”

Kevin jumped out
of bed and nearly injured himself several times while trying to get
dressed.  Looking at his Ksync again, his mind fought through a haze and
recognized that the time was just after six in the morning. On a Sunday! What
was she thinking?

He labored to
sneak through the living room and out the main door without causing a
stir.  Kevin stepped into the hallway and was immediately grabbed by his
shirt sleeve.

“C’mon,” Stephanie
whispered with vigor. “If we’re going to find out what it’s up to you’re going
to need to move faster.”

“Find out what?”
Kevin barely managed to ask as he was yanked to jogging speed down the
corridor.

“Shhh,” she
replied, while glancing at her Ksync. “I planted a tracker on that annoying pet
of Jessica’s. I know that it’s up to no good, constantly sneaking off. What
kind of pet sneaks off into the night?”

“I don’t know,”
replied Kevin as they continued to jog down the corridor, “a cat?”

Reaching the lift
Stephanie smacked Kevin gently on his arm. “Smart-aleck. This thing isn’t a
cat.  I don’t trust it. Never have.”

“So where are we
going?” asked Kevin.

Looking at the map
on her Ksync, Stephanie replied, “It’s headed to the galley.”

A short trip up
the lift and down another long hallway led both of them to the ship’s main
galley. Rounding the corner, Stephanie took cover behind a cart of silverware.
Kevin took up position behind a large plastic potted plant.  In the
distance both of them spied a small glowing ball hovering across the dining
room.  It glided over the doors leading to kitchen and out of sight.

“What kind of
trouble could it be causing in the kitchen?” asked Kevin.

“You never know
with these gadgets,” Stephanie replied in low tones. “Probably put together in
Hong Kong with Singapore software.  This thing could have all sorts of
sleeper code in it, just waiting to wake up and take us all out.  What
better way than to poison us all?”

“Don’t you think
the cooks will notice?” Kevin asked.

“Not if it goes
stealth mode,” she replied. “Sneaky little bugger.  Hey, shhh. It’s coming
back.”

The soft whirring
of the orange ball returned and grew louder as it approached them.
Peering closer, the ball had a small silver tray resting on top of it.
One good whiff and both of them smelled what rested on the tray…
pancakes.  Wispy floated by them and down the corridor without
stopping.  If anything, it almost seemed to whistle a little tune as it
flew down the hall.

Stephanie looked
as though she could cry before her emotions quickly swung in the opposite
direction. She dropped to the floor on her bottom and then rolling onto her
side laughing.  Kevin, seeing the look on her face, fell down to his knees
and burst out laughing as well.  The two of them laughed for almost a minute
before saying anything.

“How do you put up
with me Kevin?” Stephanie managed to get out, still laughing, but with a hint
of sadness in her voice.

Kevin detected the
hidden note as he had heard it many times before. “Never a boring day Steph,”
he responded.  “There’s no one like you.”

Stephanie scooted
over to Kevin. She leaned up against him and whispered, “You’re one of a kind
too,” she said, then gave him a kiss.

“So should we warn
you sister about her pancakes?” Kevin needled her.

Stephanie gently
elbowed him in the ribs. “Are you kidding?” she replied. “I’m going to grab
some syrup and butter. You go rustle us up a stack. Meet ya at the orange juice
machine.”

The two jumped up
and bounded into the dining hall, smiles on their faces.

#

Swiping the door's
control panel, Ashley opened the entrance to her computer lab.  Walking
in, she immediately went to the main computer workstation and began entering
instructions.  John on the other hand, moseyed around the room looking at
various machines and gadgets that dotted the lab.

Noticing his
wanderings, Ashley commented, “Don't start playing with the toys John, at least
not the shrink ray.  We wouldn't want the wrong part of you becoming
microscopic.”

“You have a shrink
ray!” John replied, clearly missing the point of her sarcasm. “Hey wait a
second,” he added as her comment started to sink in.

“No we don't have
a shrink... ray,” Ashley said, pausing after “shrink” and “ray” in an attempt
to deliver another jab. “I'm sure if we did have one though, you would be the
first person to find it and shrink something important.”

John looked as
though he was about to counter with his own remark until something else caught
his eye. “What's that thing attached to the neuro-generator?”

Ashley finished
inputting her commands and faced him.

“With any luck,
that's the next step in neuro-technology,” she answered.  “I've never been
a huge fan of headbands, not my favorite fashion accessory, mind you.
That device is my ticket back to fashion sense. Right now I have figured out
how the person receiving thoughts can go bandless,” she explained ending in a
broad smile.

Ashley walked over
to the experiment resting by John. “The problem I'm having right now is
transmitting thoughts without a neuroband,” she added.  “I’ve almost
worked out how to avoid the need for this specialized device too. Just about
any workstation should be able to transmit to a person not wearing a
neuroband.  I guess for now, the sender will have to stay hard wired so to
speak.”

“So what happened
yesterday may not even be that important,” John pondered out loud.

“No, it's very
significant,” Ashley disagreed. “You both may have been wearing different kinds
of neurobands, but the important fact was you communicated way beyond the known
range without computer assistance.  This machine just allows a link
without a neuroband, but you still need a computer to process and replicate
thought.  What you two did was unprecedented.  The closest thing like
it, if I remember right, was a bio-neuro tech experiment that Dom ran three
years ago....but that didn't end well.”

Twice in two days
Jonathon cringed at the mention of that name.  This time, the reaction was
a bit more noticeable.

“Oh, never mind,”
Ashley quickly closed the subject. “How should we go about testing this?”

“I suppose we
could try to recreate the conditions I was under,” John replied all too happy
to change the subject.

Taking his
neuroband out, he prepared for an afternoon of prodding, poking, and pondering.

Chapter 9   Hoist the Sails

Sunday was a slow
day which was put to good use running system checks throughout the ship. Most
of the ship's crew were off-duty, recharging their own batteries by socializing
with family or perhaps relaxing at the Chiller lounge.  The skeleton crew
that was working focused on diagnostics and maintenance of the ship's systems.

“All energize
systems are normal, Captain Sterling,” reported Ensign Williams via the bridge
console screen.

“Very good,”
responded the captain. “Finalize your reports and transfer systems to
automatic. I believe that fiancée of yours would appreciate a few extra hours
of your time.”

“Aye, Captain,”
acknowledged the ensign, “Thank you.”

The captain closed
out the video and opened a full screen image from the Mars tracker feed.
Her mind drifted for a moment from Mars back to Earth as she thought of the
past.

Anita Sterling
came from a long line of ship commanders.  Her family traced their line of
naval history back to WWI, the war to end all wars. Though during her
life she had not faced such conflict, it was filled with its own share of
battles.  Most of them were skirmishes between nations fighting over a
dwindling source of resources.  If it wasn't a battle over resources, it
was likely a deadlier fight with Mother Nature. The freakish disasters that
could sink a city in floods or level a village by winds had been steadily
increasing over the past decades.

Her last
assignment was a search and rescue across the midsection of Florida.
Thousands of people had died in a massive hurricane that left almost a sixth of
the state's low lying areas underwater.  Disney World was practically
beachfront property now, but instead of housing thousands of tourists it was
home to hundreds of flood victims. The horrors she had witnessed, the tears
shed by families ripped apart, and the lack of funding to rebuild ripped at her
heart.  It was a true blessing this assignment had become hers.

The U.S.S.
Columbus was filled with the best and the brightest for a noble task, carrying
the hope of a nation with her.  Thousands of desperate voices cried out
for the opportunities of their forefathers.  Anita was in charge of that
hope. She watched over her ship, not just for the families and people on board,
but as the beacon of hope that must be lit on Mars.  When they settle
outside of New America they will send back to Earth a light so bright that all
can take solace.

A different sort
of light with a warning tone brought the captain back to the present.

“Captain!” alerted
the ship's navigator, “we have an emergency sequence running in the external
systems station.”

Rushing over to
the navigator Captain Sterling directed, “Specify, ensign. What's going on down
there?”

Ensign Warren
slung visuals across his workstation like a speed shooter until finding the culprit.

“It's the sail
couplings, Captain,” he announced. “The safeties have been unlocked and the
emergency eject protocol has been initialized.”

“What?” choked the
captain, “what in the Nine Hells is going on?”

Side-stepping the
navigator, the captain swiped her hand across the vidcomm panel next to him
giving her command access. Tapping the all call tab she made a ship wide
announcement.

“Emergency crews
to workstations. Emergency crews to workstations. This is not a drill!”
directed the captain.  At the same time a ship wide alarm set off,
notifying the crew of the emergency status.

Quickly flipping
the vidcomm off all call, Captain Sterling opened a private channel with tech
officer Mercedes. A visual opened of Glennay standing in the dining room of her
quarters.

“Lieutenant, get
your team to the mid-ship workstation immediately!” the captain ordered. “We're
about to lose our sails to an emergency ejection.  Find out what is
happening down there before we lose our brakes with them!”

Glennay Mercedes'
face switched from a look of greeting to one of grave concern.

“Right away,
Captain!” she responded quickly.

Dropping the
napkin she held in her left hand from dinner, Glennay sprinted to the corridor
exit, around the door as it opened, and down the hall. Simultaneously, she
unsnapped her Ksync and brought it to her face.

“Tech and Sentinel
band,” she managed to spit out as she ran. “Ashley, John, Kyle, I need you at
the mid-ship workstation right now! Emergency!” Strapping her Ksync back to her
side, she ran right past the main lift and to a small open tube beside
it.  In stride, she leapt to the ladder in the vertical shaft.  With
seemingly reckless behavior, Glennay let her body drop down the ladder using
her forearms, thighs, and boots to slow her decent like an old-fashioned
firefighter down a pole.

#

It was becoming a
tradition for the Quinns to have Sunday dinner with the Ramirez family.
Jessica and Mary were practically inseparable already and their parents had
become good friends as a result.  This weekend Mrs. Ramirez was cooking up
la Bandera, which was quickly becoming Mr. Quinn's favorite dish.

“I hope you still
like my cooking, John,” Ana Ramirez joked.

Before he could
reply, Ashley jumped in. “A little too much, Ana. How am I supposed to keep my
man with you cooking like this for each meal?”

Both ladies
laughed as Vin Ramirez sat up in his seat. “That does it John, I'm going to
have set things straight here.  If you like her cooking that much,” he
paused with an angry look on his face,“ maybe I can loan her out to you so I
can get some peace and quiet around here.”

This time around
Vin chuckled as John tried to hold off a laugh.  Just as John had control
of his laughter, Vin received a sharp elbow in his arm from his wife.
Unable to hold it in at this point, John let out a good laugh himself.

“Oh, I'm sorry,
Vin,” Ana smiled as she circled by him passing out part of the meal.

The comfortable
banter was just beginning for the evening. Formulating a joke of her own for
Vin, Ashley's thoughts were interrupted by a page coming in on her Ksync.
Glancing down at it, she saw that it was a priority page to her lab.

John noticed her
checking the Ksync and asked, “What's up?”

“Oh I may have to
duck out for a few minutes,” she tried to say gracefully. “Someone must've
crossed a connection working overtime down there.  I'll just take a few
minutes to check it out and be right back. I'm sorry Ana.”

“We'll keep
everything warm for you until you get back, especially that handsome husband
you have… oh did I say that out loud?” she replied, covering her mouth while
glancing at her husband.

“Keep it up my
sunshine,” Vin countered. “I might make John’s loan a rent to own program.” He
followed his remarks up with a large grin.

“Don't worry Vin,
while I'm away,” returned his wife beaming a larger smile, “the children
shouldn't ask you to play with them more than sixteen, maybe seventeen times a
day.  I hope that won't interfere with your napping,”

“I'll try to keep
these two married,” interjected John. “Go on check the lab. Be quick though, I
may need your help here sooner than later.”

Ashley hurried
down to her lab.  She couldn't figure out who was spending a Sunday
working overtime, but she didn't think much of it.  Swiping the security
pad, the lab doors opened revealing a darkened computer lab.  Ashley
walked in, glanced around, and then hit the panel for the lights.

“Hello,” she asked
several times, looking around computer workstations. “Who's working too hard on
a Sunday and needs to go home?”

“I'm afraid that's
just me,” said a voice coming from behind her.

Turning, Ashley
saw no one.  The light on the main vidcomm panel was flashing though as if
an incoming call was on hold. Swiping the panel, a familiar figure appeared on
the screen.

“Dom, why are you
calling?” Ashley looked around the lab again. “Did someone call you? What's
going on here?”

“Oh no,” Dominic
replied casually. “I'm afraid I needed to make a visit without knocking first
actually.  You see I have something important to tell you and I wasn't
exactly looking for an audience.”

Ashley stood
confused. “Dom, what are you talking about? Is there something wrong?”

“Hopefully
everything is going to be just fine now,” he remarked.

“I'm kind of in
the middle of a dinner with friends, can I give you a call back in an hour?”
Ashley posed.

“I'm afraid not
Ashley, we’re on a timer right now, so to speak,” he replied shaking his head
slightly. “You see, I needed to set a few events into motion to provide you a
way over to me.  There were quite a few hurdles to jump, and I was a bit
worried I was going to have to leave you behind, but in the end I've found a
way.”

“Dom... you found
a way for me to what?” Ashley questioned as her face drew lines of confusion
upon it. “You're not making any sense.”

“I wish there was
more time to explain, I'll have to save that for later, in private,” Dominic's
vision appeared to drift for a moment. “But for now, you only have a few
minutes to follow these instructions.”

“Okay, I don't
know what...” Ashley started but was interrupted.

“You're wasting
time,” he reiterated briefly. “First I need you to gather up a few of your
neurobands, the latest versions if you please, and any other experiments you
have been working on.  We have about ten minutes I'd say to pack what you
can.”

“I'm not packing
anything up, Dominic,” Ashley stated, with a hint of irritation. “I've no idea
what you’re thinking, but nobody leaves the ship mid-journey.  What in the
world is going on?  I'm calling Anita.  Are you on something?”

Dominic's demeanor
abruptly changed from relaxed to blazing anger.

“You'll do no such
thing! How can you be so ungrateful?” he fumed at the comm screen. “There's an
emergency protocol activating right now.  In ten minutes you’ll have two
choices. One, follow my instructions and be safe aboard my ship, or two, refuse
me and I'll blow the emergency clamps on your ship's sail.  That choice
will lead to the unfortunate impact of your ship, with everyone on board,
somewhere in the northern hemisphere of Mars!”

Ashley half
tripped over a chair behind her as she stepped back in shock.

Recovering after a
second she replied in dismay. “You can't be doing this, how...”

Looking at the
crazed look on Dominic's face Ashley became inwardly frightened.  She
recalled the story, or part of the story, that John had told her about
Dom.  Ashley couldn't believe that of her close friend at the time, but
suddenly the look on his face made every word John had said suddenly
believable.

“Dom,” Ashley
started in a meeker tone. “I can send you over several of my neurobands if you
want to look at them. I'll send you my notes.  I'd love for you to see how
far I've grown as a result of your tutoring.”

“Yes you have,”
Dom replied, his tone dropping several notches in intensity. “I'm afraid after
looking at your files, it would take me far too long to replicate your
marvelous invention without you.  I'm sorry I have to admit to something
I'm a bit ashamed of, but I couldn't resist.  I peeked at your work while
helping you out the other day.  I must say you've grown far beyond my
dreams, in many ways.”

“Alright,”
Ashley thought to herself, “stay cool under pressure, just like John. Breathe.
Relax.” She looked over at the secure cabinet holding her
neurobands and then glanced at her newest experiment.

“You'll abort the protocol
then, if I come over, Dom?” she asked.

“Of course, I just
need to activate it for your ship to launch.  It’s easily deactivated
after that,” he replied.

“I need to see my
children before I leave, they have to know I love them.” She started to tear.

“You can talk to
them for as long as you like, once aboard the Argo,” he countered. “Maybe we
can find a way for them to join you, later.”

Ashley's mind
reeled in terror.  How was she going to get out of this?  If she was
going to find a way, then she needed to find out more of his plans.

“What do you need
me to do?” she asked.

“Ah excellent,
things will work out splendidly you'll see,” Dominic smiled.  “In order to
provide you transport over, I need to place your ship into a state of
emergency.  Several beneficial things happen at that point. One is the
emergency escape pods become active. Secondly, the energizers lower their
shields on the pod's exit point, making their use much more practical. After
that, well, let's say it's just a matter of attraction for you to visit my
ship.”

Ashley thought
about the realities of his plan.  Dominic was easily the most gifted
student to graduate from the academy in decades.  He didn't just
specialize in one area like she did, he specialized in three.   If it
was anyone else she wouldn't think for a second that his plan would work, but
with Dominic this was relatively simplistic.

“I
once thought he was sweet and now, well, crazy,”
she thought to herself. Getting back to the matter at hand she tried to think
quickly of a way out of the situation.

Ashley looked for
a way to buy some time. “I don't think I can get this apart in short order
Dom,” she pointed to her new experiment. “It would be a waste to leave it here.
Can I send over the schematics to that and a few other projects?”

Dominic pretended
to glance at the timer on the side of his screen. “I don't think we have time
I'm afraid” he replied.

Ashley wanted to
kick the man through the comm system.  Instead she swiped her fingers
across the workstation, hoping to find a way to contact John.  Somehow he
had locked all the comm links except the one to his ship.  Then by
accident she recognized the connection they established the other day to
transfer files had remained active.

A thought popped
into her mind, much like the time she thought of stopping time to help
Stephanie. “Wait a second. What would John do? That's it!” she nodded to
herself.

Ashley set the
video on the workstation to record her after a five second delay. She then
adjusted the controls to record for ten seconds, followed by a looping playback
of the recording for one minute. Next, she programmed the video to freeze and
end transmission. Finishing that, she quickly walked over to an old experiment.
Once there Ashley began disassembling it with repeated motions, counting to ten
in her head as she worked. At ten, Ashley dashed over to her new
experiment.  Accessing the workstation she synched the connection from the
main vid screen, setting it to take over transmission upon freezing.

“There it is, port
5150, still active,” she confirmed to herself.

“Well Mr. Smarty
Pants,” she thought to herself, smiling in Dominic's direction. “That's the
problem with geniuses and their big plans, they overlook the little details.”

Ashley activated
her experimental computer and quickly sat down on the bench beside it.

Then taking out her
neuroband she swept it quickly through her hair and around her
head.   Leaning back, Ashley took a few deep breaths, and then pushed
herself to focus more than ever before.

Chapter 10   Risky Deceptions

John looked at the
clock across the room.  Ashley had been gone only a few minutes. He
figured if she didn’t come back soon, then she wouldn’t be back until late. At
least it was always a good time visiting Vin and Ana.  The kids played,
the parents joked, and everyone left in good spirits.

Finishing their
meals quickly the kids had been excused from the table to play.  That left
the three parents to joke in a bit more mature fashion.  Vin was just
working his way into a joke that would likely result in another elbow from Ana
when a flashing light and warning tone sounded.

John jumped out of
his chair and pulled out his Ksync.  It was a general alarm, which could
mean about anything. Almost immediately after the alarm sounded an all call
came across the comm. “Emergency crews to workstations. Emergency crews to
workstations. This is not a drill!”

Ana motioned him
out the door. “We have them, go, go!”

John waved quickly
at his children then turned and darted to the exit door.  Split-stepping
as it started to open, he jumped around and sprinted down the hallway. Halfway
down the hallway to the lift, his Ksync activated.

“Tech and Sentinel
band,” called tech officer Glennay. “Ashley, John, Kyle, I need you at the mid-ship
workstation right now! Emergency!”

Doubling back,
John headed for the lift on the opposite side of the deck.  Seeing the
deck ahead he pulled out his Ksync as he stopped on the lift platform.  He
quickly punched the deck number he need to drop to and then drew the Ksync to
his face.

“Tech band,” he
directed to the Ksync. “Any word on the alarm?”

A few seconds
passed before he heard a winded response. “Negative, meet up at the sail
couplings mid-ship John.”

“There in sixty
seconds or less,” John replied.

Before the lift
met with the floor, John jumped the railing and sprinted toward the mid-ship
access door.  As he rounded the corner, he saw the doorway ahead was
open.  Continuing through, he saw that the lift was already up to the next
level.  Saving time, John jumped up several rungs of the access ladder and
quickly made his way up to the next deck level.

As he made his way
around several machines, John saw tech officer Mercedes speaking with Captain
Sterling over vidcomm.

“That's correct,
Captain,” replied Glennay. “Every code I've tried is locked out. Either we have
a full system crash on our hands, or someone has found a way to shut us out.”

Seeing Sentinel
Quinn in her vidcomm the captain called out. “Commander, we don't know what we
have here.  I want a physical search of all high target access
points.  If there's a saboteur tapping in to our systems, I want him
found.”

“Aye, Captain,”
John replied. “I'm not up on the situation yet, what do we have?”

“We're on an
emergency station, escape pods are being prepped for launch and for some reason
our sails are set for jettison in less than ten minutes,” summarized the
captain.

“What's Ashley's
ETA?” asked Lieutenant Mercedes.

“She should be
coming from the lab,” John replied, “but I don't know what's keeping her now.
There was a problem in the lab.”

“Put Lieutenant
Jennings in charge of the scouting party commander,” reissued the captain. “I
want you to head down to the lab and find Ashley.  This might be
connected.”

Commander Quinn
briskly saluted and ran back to the lift.  Swiping the controls for the
next level down he waited for the lift to drop. Without enough room to jump
off, he waited for it to level up with the floor below before running
again.  John flew down the hall, jumping sideways past two different crew
members before reaching the lift area he needed.

“Never a lift when
you need one,” he grumbled as the current platform was at another level.
Jumping as he had before, he quickly scaled the access tube ladder beside the
lift.  Three decks later he hopped up on the floor and started to run once
more. By the time he reached the lab his lungs were scorching and his heart
rate was pounding the sides of his head.

“I need to hit the
swim machine again,” he gasped.

Swiping the door
controls, he quickly stepped inside. The main lab was dim, yet Ashley's
experiment area was lit up.  He maneuvered around lab equipment and then
more lab equipment before stopping in his tracks at the strange sight before
him.

Ashley rested on
top of a bench beside her latest invention.  The computer was clearly
active and was displaying some sort of wave pattern on a visual display.
Kneeling beside her, John could plainly see her rhythmic breathing. Less
obvious was the rapid eye movement she had, typical of sleep or neuroband
interfacing.  The fact that she was now wearing her neuroband, made the
latter far more likely.

“What are you up
to?” he asked in a soft voice.

Almost in answer,
a vaguely familiar voice came from her main workstation.
Turning toward the workstation, John stopped in his tracks again. The screen
was divided into two parts.  The left side held the image of Dominic
Andreou, and the right side flashed a message over and over. “Don't wake me!
Stop the override!”

“Grab the last of
your things, Ashley,” Dominic’s voice filled the lab. “You've 30 seconds left
before heading to the lift.”

John looked at
Ashley and then looked back at the screen. Charging the screen he challenged.
“You Academy League prick, you're responsible for this aren't you?  Stand
down from this right now before I find a way to wipe that smug look off your
face, permanently!”

John waited for a
response, but none was given. In fact, Dominic seemed to be swiping something
on his workstation wholly oblivious to him.

“I said stand
down!” John yelled even louder.

Again Dominic
seemed to ignore him.

“Okay, my dear,”
Dominic seemed to speak into the lab through the vidcomm. “Your time is up.
Head out to the nearest lift and take it down one level to the nearest escape
pod. Don't worry, I've enabled your Ksync now and will keep in touch.”

Fighting off the
rage coursing through his body, John tried to get control of himself.

“What in the
blazes is going on?” he asked himself. Looking at Ashley, she remained
motionless on the bench. Dominic had either gone mad or was talking to himself
or both.

Through John's own
Ksync a message came through, “John, where's Ashley? I need her up here,” asked
Glennay.

“Um, she's kind of
incapacitated at the moment,” he struggled to describe her current state.

“Is she O.K.? Do
you need a med team, John?” she acknowledged in a worried tone.

John spoke into
his Ksync, “No, we're good here I think. Listen Glennay, something screwy is
definitely going on here and I'm pretty sure I know the man responsible... but
I don't know what it is.  Ashley can’t help right now. We need to find a
way to stop this emergency situation Glennay. Pull out all the stops if you
have to, I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Short of pulling
the plug here, John, I've tried everything. I was really hoping Ashley could
help out,” she replied, sounding more concerned than before.

Before he could
say more Dominic's voice came through on Ashley's Ksync, still attached to her
belt. “That's good.  I see you caught the lift.  Now head down a
level and find yourself that pod.”

John
double-checked his eyeballs, Ashley was still there alright. Stroking her hand,
he felt the warmth of her body.

Again her Ksync
sounded with Dominic's voice. “Good, strap yourself in and get ready for a bit
of a bumpy ride. We're just going to play a game of catch here.  Your pod
will toss you in the Argo's direction, and before you fall away my ship will
catch you with its magnetic shields.  I've run the simulations almost a
thousand times now, only thirty of them resulted in less than desirable
outcomes.”

“Alright
John, she's fine. She's not on a pod. She's right here,”
John told himself.

Looking from
Ashley, to her workstation, to the vidcomm the situation began to coalesce
together.

“You’re not,” he
whispered in a hollow tone. “Are you really trying to pull that off?”

Chapter 11   Beauty is in the Mind of the
Beholder

Dominic watched as
Ashley settled into the escape pod.  He gave her one last reassurance over
the Ksync before shifting his attention to the next hurdle.

“It would have
been nice to save the children,” he muttered to himself.

Dominic argued in
his mind. “Still, she will forgive me over time.  When she sees all
that we can accomplish, she'll understand.  Then we can return to the way
things should have been.”

Pulling up a
separate screen on his workstation, Dominic hailed the bridge. “Captain
Dranius...”

An older man
dressed in an olive green uniform came into view on the vidcomm.

“Dr. Andreou, how
can I be of service?” the captain inquired.

“The engines are
online and ready to fire, I presume?” Dominic asked in a commanding tone.

“Upon your word,
Dr. Andreou,” the officer replied.

Swiping several
screens on his workstation Dominic activated several programs.

Refocusing
on the captain, Dominic continued. “You will notice a drop in your shields
momentarily as we discussed. I will personally overseeing their use to bring
our honored guest aboard.  Once the lab's exterior bay is re-sealed you
should see a return to normal energize levels.  I will give the command to
fire the engines shortly thereafter.”

“We stand ready,”
the captain acknowledged.

Pausing for a
moment, Dominic held his fingertip over the launch button.  Zooming in his
external video of the U.S.S. Columbus, he checked his projections one more
time.  Pressing the button on his screen, he confirmed the launch of an
escape pod.

A targeting window
was aimed squarely over the pod now as it shot away from its mother-ship. For a
moment, the pod veered off quickly from the fleet as its speed dropped.
Almost in the same moment, though, it turned and was yanked back in the fleet's
direction.

Slowly it inched
its way toward the Argo until resting on the exterior of the ship.
Dominic turned away from the video as he could instead view the escape pod through
the opaque lab bay doors.  The ship's exterior doors jerked slightly
before continuing to open smoothly.  With the bay doors open, the pod
slowly entered the ship. It gracefully glided inside, guided by an invisible
magnetic force.  The pod rested gently as if landing on a pillow.

“Captain, you
should have full control of your energizers again,” Dominic indicated to the
vidcomm.

“Acknowledged,”
replied Captain Dranius.

Standing up
straight, Dominic adjusted his clothing and quickly brushed through his hair
with his fingers.  Taking a deep breath, he walked to the door leading
into the lab bay and opened it. He crossed the doorway and proceeded down a
shallow ramp. Dominic quickly shuffled across the bay to the pod.  Moving
to the pod's hatch, he hurriedly pressed the release button.

The hatch opened
slowly from both sides.  Within the small confines of the pod sat
Ashley.  Dominic couldn’t help but compare her to the young woman he had
fallen in love with at the academy.  Pulling her hair back she revealed a
few lines of experience on her face, but in his eyes she remained a vision to
behold.

“I designed the
ship’s exterior doors to safely load my sensitive lab equipment.  I never
dreamed it would be used for an even greater purpose, to bring you here.” He
greeted her.

“Dom, you promised
that I could talk with Jessica and Stephanie. Please, let me speak with them,”
Ashley pleaded as she stepped out of the pod.

“I understand, of
course,” he agreed. “Allow me to welcome you
first.”

Pulling a single red
rose from under his cuff, Dominic stepped close to her. He placed the flower
through her hair and then gently pulled her hand to his lips. Seemingly
unnoticed by his eyes, the rose floated down to the ground landing softly at
his feet.

“I shall alert the
captain to put you through to your daughters immediately,” Dominic asserted.

Drawing a personal
comm unit from his belt, he activated it. “Captain Dranius, please activate our
systems as discussed.  I have a lovely lady here who would like to speak
to the Columbus.”  Dominic smiled as he turned back to Ashley. “Please
come with me to my lab. We can talk with them there.”

Taking her by the
hand, Dominic led her up the ramp.

“My dear, you are
dreadfully cold,” Dominic commented.

“Oh, it was
freezing in the pod.  I need to warm-up,” Ashley replied quickly.

Entering his lab,
Dominic let go of Ashley's hand and continued slowly down the main isle of his
lab.  Just as he had started, the entire ship was jarred by a massive
force causing him to wobble slightly before grabbing a nearby table.

“I'm sorry Ashley,
but that jolt was the result of our plasma engine firing,” he began. “Unlike
the outdated propulsion of the MARC program, the Argo has a fully functional
reactor capable of sending us to Mars in less than half the time.  I'm
afraid that I have very pressing matters to attend to there, once your fleet is
inoperable.”

“What do you mean
inoperable?” Ashley questioned forcefully.

Dominic turned to
face her.

“Simply, they
won't be a bother to me anymore.  The last thing I need is a bunch of
space-faring farmers, hoping to find some sort of new democratic paradise,
breeding across my planet.”

“What are you
doing?” she pleaded, her face now grave with concern.

“Ashley, you are
where you belong now. I've risked quite a bit in pausing our plans, but I could
think of no one else more worthy of joining me.” He started to explain.

Ashley began to
shimmer a bit and fade. Without warning, she vanished.

Instinctively
taking several steps forward, Dominic drew his hand through the space she once
stood.  His nostrils flared and his face contorted as he realized the ruse
he had fallen victim to.

“Her hand felt ice
cold, her hand felt ice cold,” he repeated with more volume. “Her hand felt ice
cold!” Grabbing a chair next to him he flung it across the room toward the
vidcomm. It bounced harmlessly off the glass panel and tumbled several times
before coming to a stop.

Dominic strode to
the vidcomm as if to do battle. “You harlot of emotions, you fool! I gambled
with my station for weeks, all for this!”

Dominic swiped the
workstation screen bringing up a full screen video of Mars.

“You see this!” he
screamed. “You see this, you witch!” Dominic's fist rose toward the planet.

“I will find the
remains of your pathetic ship after you smash into the arctic, and I will spit
upon your bones... You could have had it all! I could have had it all...” His
voice trailed off as he weakly spiraled down to the floor, his fury mixed with
tears.

#

Ashley sprung up
from the bench as though she had just awakened from a nightmare. Her hair was
moist from visible streams of perspiration streaming down her cheeks.

“No!” she
screamed, “tell me what you're going to
do!”

John grabbed onto
her, wrapping his arms around her.

“It's OK Ashley.
You're here!” He tried to comfort her.

Pushing away from
him and shaking her head, she clarified, “No, he was about to tell me what’s
going on. He's going to disable the fleet somehow, John.”

Piecing together
the events of the evening John proposed a connection to Ashley.

“Well, I'm not
sure how, but I'm pretty sure I know where,” he stated. “Glennay is mid-ship
trying to override the workstation access codes, but she's locked out.”

Ashley moved to
her main workstation.  The vidcomm was filled with static now on the left
side, only her message for John remained clear on the right. The Argo must have
moved out of range for a neuro-connection. Swiping her fingers across the
panel, she replaced those images with one of Glennay standing by the mid-ship
workstation and another one of the bridge.

Tapping into the
comm she relayed to both locations. “This is Dr. Quinn, I'm working on breaking
the override from my lab. Please keep me updated with any changes.”

“Ashley, you OK?”
Glennay asked. “John said you were out cold.”

“I'm fine, really,
thanks,” she smiled. “I'm just hoping that someone is as predictable as he is
arrogant.”

Bringing up an
identical likeness of the mid-ship workstation on her screen, she zoomed in on
the keypad. Ashley punched in a sequence of numbers: Five – One – Five –
Zero.  As she pressed each number on her screen, they were entered into
the mid-ship workstation simultaneously.

“And enter,” she
confirmed aloud.

The “Access
Denied” screen disappeared from the mid-ship workstation and was replaced by
several command lines.

“So maybe arrogant
and overconfident?” Ashley chided in a low tone. “Let's hear it for
stereotypical geniuses.”

As Ashley remotely
disengaged the emergency protocols, she could hear chatter from the bridge
through the vidcomm.

Captain Sterling
was heatedly giving out orders to her command staff.  Straining to discern
the topic, John and Ashley focused on the exchange.

“It sounds like
the other ships are entering some sort of final countdown,” John relayed to
Ashley. The disjointed conversation was difficult to piece together.

Without a word,
Ashley sprung back to motion, her hands moving along the screen like a master
pianist.  The workstation brought up several overlays, including command
authorizations for the remaining ten ships.  One by one, she disengaged
the emergency protocols of each ship, but with only three ships down Ashley
began to pound her fists against the screen.

“No, No, NO!” she
yelled at the vidcomm. “There's no more command override.  I can't stop
it!”

Watching the
bridge's main screen through the vidcomm, they stood transfixed. The video
showed seven of the eleven remaining ships simultaneously deploying their
sails. Once extended, the sails formed a three hundred sixty degree ring around
the ship.  Moments after they had locked in position, the sails detached
from their couplings.  Like an expanding ripple in the water, the sails
were propelled away from the central cores of each ship.

“He meant for that
to happen to all of us,” Ashley managed to get out. Her were emotions trapped
by the situation’s gravity.  In a semi-state of shock both of them watched
in disbelief.

“There has to be
something we can think of," John tried to shake himself out of the moment.

“Without a sail,
there's no way for them to slow down,” Ashley mulled over. “Even with
maneuvering thrusters, I don't see how they could even try to orbit.”

“Can they adjust
their trajectory enough to slingshot back to Earth, or even go onward to
another planet?” John haphazardly threw out ideas.

“I don't know,
there's a couple on the team who specialize in that,” Ashley replied. “We
should probably get up to the bridge and help coordinate ideas.”

Turning and then
jogging toward the lab exit, Ashley abruptly stopped.

“The kids! Are the
kids are OK?” She grabbed John's arm as she asked.

“They're fine, Vin
and Ana have them.” John assured her.

Letting out half a
sigh of relief, she continued to the exit. Right behind her, John began issuing
commands through his Ksync to the Sentinel team.

Chapter 12   Little Boy Blue and the Man
in the Moon

Calls were pouring
in to the bridge of the U.S.S. Columbus.  As the flagship of the fleet, it
was the natural focal point for emergency planning.  Captain Sterling,
along with the remaining fleet captains, put together a team to brainstorm
contingencies for the current situation.  At the same time, back on Earth,
scientists from the MARC program were developing contingency plans of their
own.

There was so much
focus on the current emergency, that the amazing departure of the H.S. Argo was
put aside. At least it was put aside by many, but not Jonathon Quinn.
Officially, the ships of the fleet had suffered a technical malfunction in protocols
that had led to the emergency jettison of sails.  Unofficially, Captain
Sterling had put Commander Quinn in charge of an investigation.  As
officer in charge of the Sentinel's security force, he was to use resources on
board and as possible on Earth to uncover the meaning behind the known plot.

“I just received a
message back from MARC control in D.C,” John relayed to Ashley. “It seems the
Greek embassy is unilaterally denying any involvement with the Argo's
actions.  It's not a likely possibility anyways, there's no way Greece has
leapfrogged the world scientific community and perfected a plasma drive on
their own. I have no idea how the Argo managed to become outfitted with one
either without someone in MARC catching on.  There're a lot of real fishy
circumstances here to sort through.”

Ashley closed out
a screen on her vidcomm and sat down next to John on the lab bench. Massaging
his back slightly she suggested. “You know it might be time to open up a line
of communication with your own sources.”

“Opening up those
lines means opening up old wounds...” John trailed off.

“Well we have
plenty of fresh wounds here now,” she replied delicately. “You might have to
risk a re-injury if we're going to find out anything useful before reaching
Mars.”

“I hate it when
you make too much sense,” he joked half-heartily. “I'll put the call in, just
don't bet the farm on him returning it.”

Ashley finished
rubbing his shoulders for a moment before he stood up. He walked out of the lab
and headed toward his office, managing the slowest pace his feet would allow
him.

#

Senator Joseph
Quinn Jr. looked out the window of the Russell Senate Office Building. His
vision crossed Constitution Avenue before resting upon the U.S. Capitol
Building.   He still remembered the day that his father had famously
walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol in support of the MARC
legislation.  Although he wouldn't admit it, as a young boy during such a
historic moment, the ice cream truck that sold the delicious waffle cones outside
was equally memorable.  For the last forty years the MARC program had
carved a notch in American history.  It now rested in scope with programs
such as the New Deal and the space program before it.

His father though,
wouldn't get to see the legacy of his hard work.  It would seem an
inescapable destiny for any leader that carried the torch of the common
man.  Unlike past tragedies, the whiz of an assassin's bullet this time
was recorded in XD stereo sound.  The technology of the day captured the
killer, but could not prevent the death of his father. In circumstances
mirroring the passing of great leaders before him, his death created deep
feelings of loss in a country that was ripping itself apart.  The spirit
of brotherhood emerged, however, was not squandered on blame and persecution.
History files on the I-Know devices of school children across the land were
filled with pages on the subject. Lessons teaching how the country was sewn
together from threads of compassion rather than ripped apart with accusations
of hate seeded inspiration in generations to come.

Returning to his
desk, the senator keyed his personal I-Know to resume recording his memoirs.

“My father tried
to take the center lane of life,” the senator told the recording. “Even if the
middle of the road is often crossed. Should the MARC program work in every way
possible, it still might not be enough to keep everything together. With so
many polarizing viewpoints on both berms of the road, I'm not sure how we can
get the nation driving down the center lane again.  We're running over the
warning grooves without hearing them at all and headed straight for a ditch.”

Slowly he
sat down in his chair, sinking into its leather cushions, and paused the
recording once again.  Switching to another screen on his I-Know, he took
a long stare at the contents of the page. The heading of the text on the screen
read S.J. Res twenty-three. He started the recording.

“Such a short
title for such on ominous bill,” he continued. “S.J. Res twenty-three, a
constitutional amendment that if passed would essentially rewrite the Articles
of the Constitution.  The checks and balances that have held the country
together for nearly four hundred years will fade away as memories if this
passes.  The executive branch would have the kind of power not seen on
North American soil since the times of King John of England.”

“Senator Quinn,” a
voice broke the silence of the room from the desk's vidcomm. “You have a
message coming through to your I-Know.  It’s from Jonathon Quinn.”

Joe leaned back in
his chair.  He stared at the screen of his portable computer.
Something in his brain wanted him to read the message, but his hands weren't
getting a signal to use the device. Finally he skipped the I-Know like a rock
across his desk, knocking assorted pictures and knickknacks aside.

He rubbed his
forehead with his hand, dragging his fingers across his skin.  Almost as
abruptly as he had tossed the reading pad, Joe Quinn leaned forward and
snatched the I-Know back off of his desk.  Closing the senate bill, he
brought up the message from his son.

“Dad... I told myself that I wouldn't
be sending a message. I'm fairly sure you had decided not to read any from me,”
the text began. “We couldn't see eye to eye when I was on Earth, and I know I
can't change that through a time-delayed chat from space.  I need your
help.  If you know one thing, it's that I’d never have sent this message
if I didn't need your help.”

Joe stood up,
I-Know in hand, as he continued to view the recorded message.

“There’s something going on behind
the scenes of the MARC program, Dad.  Half the fleet has been disabled by
a saboteur. Great guy, you shook his hand at my graduation, but that's only
part of it. Dad, the ship he was on, the Argo, has a functioning plasma drive.
We're scrambling to find a way to save a hundred families, and I'm getting the
run around from D.C. Control, even from my contacts in MARC.  I can't get
any straight answers out here.  I know you didn't want us going, but we're
here. I'm here, your grandkids are here, and so are a lot of other brave
people.  I'm asking you, please set it aside for now. Help me fight for
these people.  Tell me what's going on.”

Joe set the I-Know
on his desk, quite softer than the last time. He leaned back, his head gently
falling into the headrest.  He struck the left armrest of his chair with
his fist, not with violence, but with firmness.  The demons he wrestled
with were hard to fight off, but there was something in that message.
Something that reminded a father of a boy he once played catch with. Something
of a father that was once a boy.

Joseph Quinn Jr.,
rose from his old chair.  Pulling his suit coat straight he walked over to
the larger vidcomm on the wall beside his desk.

Swiping the
vidcomm's panel a voice again broke the silence, different than the one heard
moments earlier.

“I need the
President of the United States,” spoke the senator to the White House Chief of
Staff.

“Joe, good to hear
from you, it's been too long,” the man replied. “Carl has staffing in ten minutes,
I'll make sure he knows you called.  Good to hear from you, Joe.”

The Chief of Staff
lifted his arm to swipe off the vidcomm when a staggering voice interrupted
him.

“Senator Joseph
Quinn Jr., son of the Great State of New York, son of the people of the United
States of America, and son of President Joseph Quinn is calling. And I assure
you, that this calling is one that the current President of the United States
hears.”

Noticeably taken
off guard, the chief of staff paused for a second before regaining his
composure.

“Senator,
certainly, we can find a minute in the president's prep time for you,” he
assured.

“Find two
minutes…Ted,” added the senator, emphasizing the Chief of Staff’s first name.

Smiling and
leaving the vidcomm open, the Chief of Staff walked briskly toward the oval
office.

*

Chapter 13   Inventions have Mothers not
Masters

“Dr. Andreou,”
inquired Captain Dranius over the vidcomm. “Incoming message for you from The
Order.”

Dominic paused as
he contemplated the likely contents of the message. “Put it through.”

He inwardly
shuddered at the image on screen. He had strategically avoided the senator,
working to evade direct contact.

“Doctor Andreou,”
the man addressed him by his formal name. “Our readings indicate your mission
resulted in partial success.  Four of the eleven colonial ships, however,
remain intact.  Though this margin of error was statistically within the
parameters of your mission, I expected more from you.”

A look of
disappointment spread across the man's face.  The video feed followed the
senator as he turned and slowly walked along a garden path.  It was
surrounded by a cornucopia of exotic plants.  His white robe caught on a
thin spiked plant forcing him to pause his stroll. Carefully untangling himself
first, the senator reached out and grabbed the offending plant. The needles
pierced his flesh as his hand ripped the plant from the ground. He tossed it to
the ground as droplets of his blood dripped onto the path.

“Our secondary
plan has been activated, please advise your captain to adjust his course
accordingly,” the senator continued walking down the path.  He bent down
and examined a blue eggplant shaped fruit. “When you arrive, I'll expect a
prompt visit with a suitable account of events. The Inner Order will consider
your statement and adjust your Ethos accordingly. Please execute these
adjustments discreetly." The senator picked the fruit from its stalk and
held it aloft.

"Should the
General Order note your actions," he tossed the fruit into the mass of
plant life, "you will not exist to us.”

The vidcomm went
to black.  Dominic looked away from it, a scowl growing across his
face.  His fingers swiped the vidcomm activating a live transmission.
“Captain Dranius,” he beckoned.

The vidcomm came
to life again, this time with a picture of the ship's captain upon the bridge.

“Dr. Andreaou,”
the captain returned his summons.

“Captain, I need
you to follow our alternate approach course, I believe we will pay a visit to
the MARC station after all,” he directed.

The captain
nodded. “We will change course immediately, Doctor. Other orders?”

“Not at this time,
Captain,” Dominic replied.

He swiped his hand
across the vidcomm ending the call.

Returning to his
workstation, Dominic stared for a moment at the monitor before bringing up
several program screens.  His fingers drug one in particular to the center
of the monitor while enlarging it.  The program was labeled “Neuroband
Interface.”  Tapping several file names on the screens, he activated
overlapping three-dimensional schematics.

“You, my pretty,
are my new love,” Dominic sub-vocalized to himself. “After all, anything she
can do, I can do better.” He smiled to himself.

“Vidcomm, bridge,”
he stated aloud.

The vidcomm
activated, displaying the crew of the bridge.

“Captain Dranius,
I believe I have another task for you,” he stated.

Moving to a nearby
vidcomm the captain answered. “And what would that be, Doctor?”

“I need five lab
assistants assigned to me,” he informed the captain. “Make sure they are
non-essential crew members.”

The captain's
eyebrows rose slightly as he acknowledged. “When do you need them to report,
Doctor?”

“I should have
need of them in, say, seventy-two hours, that would be acceptable,” Dominic
qualified.  “That is all Captain.” The vidcomm closed, and he returned to
his workstation with a new sense of direction.

#

“Look at that,”
Ashley directed to the brainwave screen on the workstation.

Glennay Mercedes
took a closer look at the wave patterns.

“That's not
supposed to happen,” she commented, “his theta waves are becoming entwined with
his beta waves.”

“Exactly,” Ashley
confirmed. “My design and testing of the neuroband allowed the theta waves of a
dream state to bind to the alpha waves of a relaxed state.  That's why
relaxation protocols were designed, to help activate the neurobands while we're
awake.  I never imagined that I would see theta waves binding with betas.”

Jonathon waived at
the vidcomm from the barren test room next door.  Another Sentinel, Kyle,
was in the test room with John both of them wearing the latest neuroband
version.

“That's amazing,
Ashley,” Glennay said in wonder of the findings. “But what does that mean? How
can anyone use a neuroband in beta state?”

“I have a theory,
but it's a bit, well...” Ashley tripped over her phrasing, “We need to run some
more tests before I can say.”

As the two
scientists discussed brainwave patterns, the two soldiers next door were having
a discussion of their own.

“It's all voodoo
to me John,” commented Lieutenant Kyle Jennings.  “Using holographs in
combat training is one thing, but creeping into a person's mind and projecting
what you want them to see...it just seems like lines can be crossed.”

“When Ashley
started all this, it was our friends in military command calling the shots,”
John related to his sentinel team member.  “You can bet they had their
eyes on replacing holo trainers with a much more realistic version of training,
and I doubt they would have been too concerned about privacy rights.
Ashley has governors built into the regular neurobands and the computer systems
running the transmissions.  They're meant to limit what can be
transmitted. You're right though, it’s teetering on a thin line.”

“You said the other
day you used one to talk to Jessica during the blackout,” interjected Kyle.
“How does that work?”

“We're still not
positive,” John tried to answer. “That's why we're here now.  The best way
I can explain it...have you ever been in a dream that feels too real?  One
that takes a few seconds when you wake up to realize you were dreaming?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kyle
acknowledged.

“That’s part of
it,” John tried to describe. “The other part is… if you've had a dream where
you felt like you could guide its direction as the dream went on.  I mean
most of the time you wake up and realize how crazy and mixed up your dreams
are. Sometimes you can even piece together why some of the things were in your
dream.  I'm talking about when you are awake enough that you know you're
in a dream, yet can still steer its direction to go the way you want it to go.”

“I think I know
what you're talking about,” replied Kyle. “I can't say I sit around thinking
about it much.”

“Yeah, it wasn't
on my hot list either, not until we started all this work with the neurobands,”
John added.

John noticed the
vidcomm with Ashley and Glennay looking at them and laughing. Ashley was
mocking them by talking back and forth with her hands.

She stopped and
asked them. “Are you two gals going to stop gabbing and get back to testing?”

“Love ya back,”
replied as he touched two fingers to his lips and threw her a kiss.

A strange look
came across Ashley's face.  She quickly turned to the workstation screens.
Noticing Ashley's strange reaction, Glennay asked. “What’s wrong?”

Ashley pointed to
a wave pattern on the monitor. “Right there, see that?  From six seconds
ago.”  Ashley tapped on the monitor as the wave pattern continued to roll
across the screen.

“It looks like his
theta waves bound to a beta wave,” assessed Glennay. “But look at the watts
generated.  That can't be right.”

“Glennay,” Ashley
explained. “I felt that kiss he threw me. I'm not kidding. It felt as if he had
leaned over and gave me kiss just as sure as he was standing here.”

“But he wasn't
close to alpha state, I mean John was fully awake, joking, talking... Ashley
this is pretty big here.”

“Yeah I agree, I'm
shutting it down for now,” Ashley replied closing down systems.

Turning back to
the vidcomm Ashley informed John. “Come on over, I think you've done enough for
the day.”

Giving her a
thumbs up through the vidcomm, he put his neuroband back in his belt case and
headed toward the main lab.

Before she could
continue her discussion with Glennay, Ashley was interrupted by an incoming
call from the bridge.

“Dr. Quinn,” paged
Ensign Williams. “The captain is sending reports on our communication status.
All fleet communications are still down.  We're still receiving static
from planet-side communications as well.”

Ashley shook her
head. For the last two days the U.S.S. Columbus hadn't been able to communicate
with anyone outside the ship.  She had worked for sixteen hours yesterday
with search routines to catch the culprit inhibiting communication. So far the
routine had come up empty.  Her working theory was that Dominic had
planted a few more bumps in the road as contingency plans.  If that was
the case, the Columbus wasn't out of hot water yet.

“I'm closing shop
here,” she informed the ensign. “I'll be up to the bridge again within the
hour.”

“I'll convey that
to the captain,” Ensign Williams acknowledged before closing the comm signal.

Jonathon entered
the lab giving a quick wave to Glennay.

“If you're so
distraught by our girlie gab, then why are we calling it quits?” John said
sarcastically.

Ashley placed the
back of her hand across her forehead and replied in a southern drawl, “I'm
afraid my delicate nature was overwhelmed with such a powerful kiss from afar.”

Glennay couldn't
resist a small laugh.

John looked
confused at first, but quickly recovered and replied in his own southern
accent. “I will try to reserve myself when in the company of such beauty. I
fear I do not know the strength of my own affections.”

Glennay rolled her
eyes as she grabbed her jacket. “I'll leave you two hopeless romantics alone
while I get some actual work finished around here.”

As she headed out
the door, Glennay paused and peaked back in. “Try not to let your head get too
big John when you understand what she's talking about.”  With a jab and a
wink, she left the lab.

“Now what did I do
to deserve that?”  John pointed at himself.

“I need to get to
the bridge,” Ashley relayed to John. “But sit down quick and let me show you
some brainwaves.  Try not to fall out of your chair as I'm about to knock
your socks off.”

John turned a
chair around backward and sat down looking genuinely ready to be amazed.

*

Chapter 14   Worlds Apart

The
MARC mission operated under a carefully constructed set of guidelines.
The first phase was under the command of each ship captain.  It included
the launch, travel time, and arrival at Mars. Individual ship captains would
handle any matters pertaining to their own ship.  Situations involving the
entire fleet, however, would be managed by a majority vote of ship
captains.  Any vote resulting in a tie would be broken by the fleet
commander, in this case Captain Sterling.

After
four days of fleet silence due to jammed communications, a technician on the
HMAS Melbourne had dealt with the problem through unconventional means.
Frustrated by the difficulty in tracking down the virus, the officer built a
duplicate communication substation from scratch.  Substituting the new
system for the original, the Melbourne was able to bypass the jamming. He then
sent transmissions to the rest of the fleet on how to replicate the
process.  It took over a day and a half for the entire fleet to bring
their versions online.

During
the four days of silence, a stew of heated emotions had cooked under the
pressure of uncertainty.  When the captains were finally able to discuss
the emergency situation, an understandable explosion of accusations
erupted.  Four long hours later, cooler heads finally prevailed and sorted
the matters into two concerns – What happened to the Argo, and how would the
disabled ships slow their speed?

Captain
Sterling took a deep drink of water as she finished a tiring round of fleet
chat.  A full complement of crew manned the bridge during this
emergency.  Waving for the bridge crew to gather, Captain Sterling
addressed them.

“We
have our work cut out for us,” she began. “Ten days from now we will be
arriving at Mars. That gives us nine days to save hundreds of lives.  Four
of the eleven remaining ships will deploy their sails, channeling the incoming
plasma beams into a smooth deceleration. Seven ships of the fleet will continue
on their course proceeding at their current speed, and will either impact Mars
or continue through space.  Our every waking thought between now and then
is to be filled with ideas on stopping this tragedy.”

Motioning
to Ashley, the captain continued. “Dr. Quinn you are taking point on
this.  Pick your team of techs from across the fleet and get started
immediately.”

Facing
Glennay the captain specified. “Lieutenant Mercedes, I think you have a lost
twin aboard the Melbourne.  I want you to coordinate with Sub-Lieutenant
Anderson.  Find out if the Argo left us any more hidden surprises.” Saving
Commander Quinn for last, she finished, “Commander, now that communications
have been restored I want you to continue your previous task. I expect some
answers soon.”

“Aye,
Captain,” he replied.

“Get
moving,” motioned Captain Sterling toward the exit. “Dismissed.”

As
John joined the crew leaving on the lift, Ensign Williams signaled for his
attention, “Commander, I have a transmission from Earth.  It's the one
you've been waiting on.”

Overhearing
the ensign, Ashley cast John a silent look of understanding.

Nodding,
he gave the ensign instructions. “Send it to my office.  I'll be there
shortly.”

“Aye,
Commander,” replied Ensign Williams.

John
sarcastically lipped the words “Fun times” to Ashley.

As
the lift finally started down, he let out a deep breath and thought, “I'm so
looking forward to this.”

#

Pulling
out a clear bottle from a desk drawer, John poured himself a drink.

Reminding
himself he said, “This was supposed to be for our arrival, but this message
warrants an exception.”

He
sat down in his office chair and took a swig of the powerful concoction.
He gasped slightly. “Oh Glenmorangie. That's the stuff. Let's hope after
hearing this I don't want to lose my head.”

Leaning
forward, John activated the message waiting for him on his vidcomm.  His
father appeared out of scene as he was not sitting in his favorite chair.
In fact, his personal vidcomm recorded him walking briskly down a
sidewalk.  The senator's speech wavered in and out of coherence from his
labored breathing.

“Jonathon,
we need to talk about the old days,” he said forcing a smile. “Watching old
movies with your grandfather, sharing books, debating history, those were times
to remember.”

Pausing
at a bench, the senator caught his breath as he tried to continue. “I know you
have questions, but look to those memories for your answers. Here in D.C., one
would think policy is going the way of the Empire.”

Wiping
his forehead with a handkerchief, he added. “It's so hot this time of year,
John. Makes it difficult to talk. You would think its four hundred degrees
outside. I’m afraid my constitution is not up to the summer heat.  It’s
all out of balance. You might say I’ve run out of checks for the bills.  I
wonder if Aristotle had to think under such heat."

Starting
another brisk walk, his father continued. “As for your friend, he fancies himself
a senator too, though not as result of any elective in college.  I'm
afraid when you look behind his curtain, the Wizard of Oz is an agent of
Spectre.”

Stopping
again, his father leaned against a public vidcomm. “Your new home sounds like a
great frontier, but it will take people of great constitution to survive
there.   Otherwise you may find yourselves caught in a battle between
Sparta and old King George.  I know you’ll see a way through, John.
You have the heart of Hoss, the passion of Little Joe, the intelligence of
Adam, and the wisdom of Ben.”

Looking
sideways, his father clearly caught a vision of something dreadful. He quickly
faced his vidcomm again. “John, you grew up right. I'm so proud of you.
Tell the girls I love them. Carry your grandfather's dream...”

A
flash of light filled the senator's vidcomm, followed by the words,
“Transmission Terminated” scrolling across the screen.

“What!”
yelled John as he stood up and shook the vidcomm in frustration.  Swiping
its screen he paged Ensign Williams.

“Commander,
what can I do for you?” asked the ensign politely.

“Did
that transmission cut off,” demanded John without any pleasantries. “Do you
have any more of that transmission?”

“I'm
sorry, Sir,” the ensign replied, acknowledging the sound of urgency in the
commander's voice. “That was the entire signal.  If there was a second
message we haven't received it yet.”

John
turned away from the screen and regrouped. “Thank you, Ensign.”  He swiped
off the vidcomm.

Moving
to far corner of his office, John pulled a gym pack out of a wall locker.
He opened it up quickly checking the contents of the pack.

“Blasted
one-way messages,” he scoffed.

He
needed a place to think it through. He needed to think of his next move.
Neither of these things would be possible with the anger that was coursing
through his veins.

Slinging
the pack over his shoulder he moved with purpose out of his office.  There
was only one good place for him to go right now, the fit room.

Meanwhile
on the bridge, Ensign Williams pondered his conversation with Commander Quinn
for a few moments.

“That
was just plain odd,” he thought to himself.

Being
the primary communications officer on a ship, you are privy to more things than
any one person should know.  Although he would never gossip, that's not
professional, and he would never meddle, that's just not his place--there was
an exception clause for emergencies.

Tapping
a vidcomm screen, he sent a page to Lieutenant Kyle Jennings John's right hand
man in the sentinels.

*

Chapter 15   Learning the Hard Way

John pulled up the
holographic controls on the fit room's workstation.    Scanning
his training programs, he stopped on one labeled The Octagon.  He
had designed it from a long forgotten martial arts movie. The subject was
fitting given a line from his father's cryptic message.

“Nothing like an
old fashioned ninja showdown to clear the mind,” John joked to himself as he
set the parameters for the holo-battle. The room physically began to shift and
create multiple levels out of shock absorbing materials. Images of maze like
corridors replaced reality.    The walls created an octagonal
shaped perimeter for the combatants.

Before he could
finish the settings, however, the doors to the fit room opened. Lieutenant
Jennings walked in, followed a few seconds later by four more of his sentinels.

John cracked a
smile as he asked, “What's my band of merry men doing here?”

“I stopped by your
office and Ashley's lab, and this was likely the next place to find you,”
replied Kyle.

“And found me you
have,” jested John. “Have you been sent by the Ninja Master?”

Kyle looked at
John curiously. “No, I don't think any ninja masters have sent us, but with all
the distractions we're in need of practice.”

Kyle continued
spinning his convenient story, “We'll be landing soon, and we could stand a bit
of a workout.”

John rubbed his
chin a bit as if he had a goatee to stroke. “I think you are lying to me,” he
said in a poor Japanese accent.

John tossed each
of the men a holo-rifle as he continued, “I think you have been sent by Ninja
Master Seikura to stop me from discovering my father's fate.”

With the last
rifle passed out, John adjusted the parameters of the program to include his
semi-willing participants.

“I know you
have me outnumbered and outgunned," he added showing his empty hands, “but
don't underestimate the Brain-fu of John 'Sidekicks' Quinn!”

With that, he hit
the activation countdown on the holo-simulator and jumped down several levels
into the octagon. His jump was soon concealed by a wooden floor.

The five men
looked at each other for a moment. Though used to John's humor, even they were
a bit confused.  A red light began to flash through the room reflecting
off the walls of the octagon. Their time to think was over.

A computer voice
counted down, “Program the Octagon. Starting in five, four, three, two, one.”

The room was fully
transformed.  What was seconds ago metallic looking walls lined with
cushioned pads was now a thick jungle.  The sounds of birds, crickets, and
a host of tropical sounds filled the area.  The exterior of the octagon
was still visible though it was covered with moss and thickly woven
vines.

Each man looked
around, they chuckled a bit in turn seeing each other. Thanks to the
holo-program they were dressed head to toe in black.  Carrying what looked
to be hand crossbows, they were now a band of five ninjas.

“Well John, here's
to hoping this is natural coping and not a sign that you've snapped,” Kyle
remarked.

Motioning to the
opening in the octagon, Kyle addressed the men, “I think we can play the part
of silent killers. The first man to tag John gets furlough when we land planet
side. What do you say?”

One by one, the
men gave a silent cheer and then snuck into the octagon each taking a separate
path.

*

John strapped his
neuroband around his head as he crouched down behind an illusionary marble
water fountain.

“The Empire,”
John's word were concealed by the trickling water. “Dad said that D.C. was
going the way of the Empire. I know you were an intelligence officer in the
Navy, but secret movie code. Really, Dad?”

The area around
the water fountain looked like an oriental garden. Small streams of water
flowed under little wooden bridges.  Exquisitely trimmed trees and bushes
lined the walkways, many of them carved into the shapes of warriors.

He chose this area
carefully as he preferred to lure his enemies to him.  Charging around
blindly in unexplored territory was usually a recipe for dying.

“The
Empire were the bad guys in that Star Wars movie,”
he thought to himself.  “They were trying to take everything over if I
remember right.”

When you're
seven-years-old things come back to you in clumps of images at best.

“I remember that
creepy guy with the hood shooting people with lightning bolts,” John said to
himself as he recalled another image from the film.

His thoughts
shifted back to his father. “I know Dad was worried about some recent
legislation trying to eliminate checks and balances, but people couldn't be
that naive, could they?”

Soon, John heard a
crackle from the nearby hedges.  Someone was impatiently moving
about.  He'd have to note that for a later training session.

“Okay,
it’s time to test how this will work in combat.”
he thought to himself. He had worked so hard to transfer the program out of
military control, yet he was about to take a page out of their handbook.

He inched his way
along the ground in the direction of the sound, trying his best to stay in
cover.  The light in the garden was soft moonlight at best. Straining his
eyes he could make out what looked to be a shadow moving against the green
foliage ahead.

Concentrating on
the shadow, he formed a picture in his mind of fire.  The crackle of
leaves as they burned, the smell of smoke, the searing heat given off, and the
light from the reaction. Having a convincing picture his mind flung it at the
shadow as if physically tossing an object.

Although the
hologram of the area did not change, something must have worked in the shadow's
mind as a man jumped out of the bushes yelling "fire" repeatedly.
No longer a shadow, the struggling ninja dug his heals into the ground.
With several urgent kicks, he pushed himself away from the brush.

John easily
maneuvered behind the man preoccupied with the imaginary fire. In one motion he
wrapped his legs around the man, immobilizing him, as his arms thrust into a
choke hold.

“Say mercy me,”
John whispered in a low voice as he broke his mental image of the fire.

The man stopped
trying to resist, though instead of mercy me he responded, “What the heck!
Where'd the fire go?”

“That's an ancient
Chinese secret, my friend,” John replied. “I'll explain later but for now
you're out.”

John released the
man and whispered. “Be a good dead ninja and stay here quietly.  No
helping the others. Hit the kill button on your crossbow.”

The man nodded and
moved a lever on the crossbow. The holo-program, receiving his kill switch
activation, transformed his image into a new water fountain for the garden.

“May the pigeons
fly far from your waters,” joked John as he saluted the fountain and proceeded
toward a nearby opening in the maze.

Trying his best to
move stealthily along, his mind slipped back to the message from his father.
What had cut the transmission?  Who was he trying to get away from?
Where was his security detail?

“Questions
for later,” he thought to himself. “Think about
the answers he gave instead.”

Leaving the
garden, John moved quietly along a dirt path until it reached a ladder.
He slowly climbed up the ladder to avoid any creaks.  Reaching the top, he
found himself in a change of scenery. The walkway transformed into a stone
floor its path winding through a damp cave. He felt a bit of a chill as a
stream of cool air passed through the cavern.

“It
was four hundred degrees though in D.C.,” John thought
again of his father's riddle. “The heat in D.C. may have gone up with global
warming, but not that much. The book Fahrenheit 451 could be what he was
alluding to.   We used to argue over themes of censure or factoids.
Well if something like the Empire is taking over it could be both ideas in
play.  That might explain why my MARC sources have fallen short with
explanations lately.”

The cave opened up
to what appeared to be a much larger cavern.  In reality, the one hundred
foot ceilings were likely twenty feet at best, but thanks to the holograms,
they were convincing.

Another aspect that was
very convincing was the large chasm that cut off one side of the cavern from
another.  Some of his sense of humor must have rubbed off on the computer
program's terrain generation.  Stretching across the chasm was a single
brown twine of rope, tied off at both ends around a large stalagmite.

“A rope bridge,”
he muttered to himself.

John raised his
hands to the ceiling as if talking to the holo-program itself. “Why does it
have to be a rope bridge? You know I'm not really a ninja, right?”

“Okay,” John tried
to bolster himself. “This isn't really a giant chasm of doom where you can fall
to your death.  It's maybe twenty, thirty feet down. Worst case you sprain
an ankle, no sweat. It's not even a rope; probably some type of cable.”

Steadying himself
by placing his hand on a stalagmite, John put a foot on the rope and stepped
up. He tried taking his hand away from the pillar for a second and nearly fell.

“Just don't look
down, right?” he assured himself.

Taking his hand
away again, he managed to keep his balance.  Slowly he placed one foot in
front of the other. By some sort of miracle, John managed to slink eight or
nine feet across the chasm.  That is of course until another man, dressed
from head to toe in a black ninja outfit, approached from the other side.

“Looks like I'm
going to be the first person to enjoy a Martian beach,” chuckled the man as he
drew his crossbow.

The sight broke
John's concentration causing him to lose his footing and fall.  Although
his balance had failed, his quick reactions curled his legs around the
rope.  Though he had temporarily escaped a plunge of doom, John hung
precariously upside down.

“Sir, let me help
you down from there,” offered the ninja as he raised his crossbow and aimed it
at John.

Almost forgetting
his ace card due to his peculiar position, John stalled for time.

“Don't move!” John
yelled as he continued to clasp onto the rope. “That's the biggest hairy spider
I've seen in my life!”

The man dipped
down quickly turning and looking around.  It gave John enough time to
conjure an image. The ninja's crossbow went slowly down and fell from his hands
as he backed up.

“Oh my god!” the
man shouted while backing up, not noticing he was about to run out of solid
ground.

“Watch out for
that...” John tried half-heartily to warn him before falling backward down the
chasm. A thud was heard not a second later.

“Oh that's going
to hurt,” John said down the chasm. “Sorry, I didn't think that one
through.  In my defense, I was upside down.”

Still drooping
from the rope, John grabbed the line.  With substantial effort, he
successfully shimmied his way across the chasm. With a grunt and a groan he
climbed his way to solid ground.

Pulling his Ksync
from his belt, which had been changed to look like an old pouch, he checked on
the status of his fellow sentinel. The display showed the readout of all team
members as healthy.  Looking over the chasm he saluted, then headed down
the lighted passage ahead.

“I don't suspect
any ninjas will be hiding in here,” John commented to himself.

The circular room
was well lit and constructed from polished marble.  An oval stone table
filled most of the room. It was surrounded by several high backed chairs.
Hanging on the walls around the room were a variety of archaic weapons.
He instantly recognized several ninja swords hanging from their sheaths. The
other weapons were out of character for the Octagon.

“Spiked knuckles,
chainsaw, sawed-off shotgun, electro rifle,” he noted as he looked around the
room. John’s eyes came to rest his on one weapon in particular. “That's one big
son-of-a-gun. I think the computer got vidgames in my Octagon, or Octagon in my
vidgames.”

John directed his
attention back to the center of the room.

“This seems like a
strange meeting area,” John remarked. “If this was obsidian all around instead
of marble and I had recently dropped into a volcano it could work as Spectre
headquarters. We just need a white cat."

John ran his hand
along the table as he followed its oval shape around the room.

“Dominic and
Spectre are match made in heaven,” he continued decoding the clues. “Bent on
world domination is likely tattooed on his right arm, with a heart shaped I
love mom design on the left.”

Nearing the
mid-section of the table John saw a phrase etched into the stone A grands
maux, grands remèdes.  Leaning over to examine the writing, he felt a
slight puff of air as a crossbow bolt whizzed past his right ear and splintered
against the wall behind him.

Not waiting to see
where it came from, he dropped down behind the stone table.

John
considered the possibilities.  He couldn't use his neuroband because he
couldn't see his target. Moreover, the assailant was smart enough to keep quiet
and not give away his position. The weapons hanging nearby would even the odds
if he wasn't clipped trying to reach them.

John cupped his
hands and yelled, “Ally ally oxen free!”  He paused, listened, and shrugged
his shoulders. “Not falling for that one eh?”

“There's
no way I'm making it to that wall,” he thought to himself. “I
need to sneak a peek.”

Crawling a few
feet over from where he'd yelled, John took off his jacket and held it in his
left hand. Raising the jacket above the table, he quickly poked his head up to
get a look. Another bolt shot across the room, piercing his jacket, and leaving
a round hole. John dropped back behind the table.  The peak was long
enough to spot his attacker hiding behind a wine barrel in the adjacent hall.

"That was my
favorite jacket!" John shouted. He managed to get a muffled laugh from the
comment.

“Gotcha,” he
whispered quietly as he locked on to the man with his thoughts.  John
conjured images in his mind of an old-fashioned grenade, green in color,
something that would make a very loud boom and a forceful blast.  Then he
looked at the ground by the man and shouted, “Grenade!” as he made a throwing
motion.

The ninja darted
for cover, landing on the other side of the table from John. He didn't waste
the opportunity springing to the wall and grasping the shotgun.  Rounding
the table he bore the weapon on the ninja who was still kneeling with his hands
over his ears.

“That was pretty
impressive Ensign...Clark is it?” John asked as he continued to keep the barrel
pointed at the man in black.

“Nice one,
Commander,” the ensign replied. “I thought you were unarmed, guess I should
have paid more attention to those guns on the wall.”

“Always know your
surroundings, Mister,” John replied. “I'm not exactly unarmed either to be
honest. Kill switch on the crossbow if you please.”

Pressing the
button on the holo-rifle, Ensign Clark was transformed by the program into a
large marble statue.

Tossing his
shotgun to the floor, John saluted the statue and proceeded down the uncharted
passageway.

His thoughts
drifted again to his father's cryptic message.

“Being
healthy, Spartans, and King George,” he recalled while
shaking his head. “I need a decoder ring for that part.”

The passage opened
up into a courtyard of sorts. What looked to be an area fifty meters across was
likely half that, a common illusion of the holo-programs.

Several suits of ō-yoroi
were filled with straw and fashioned as targets throughout the grounds.
John pretended not to notice two hidden figures crouched behind suits of
armor.  He feigned a careless walk through the yard, then unexpectedly
took cover behind one of the straw targets.

“Give up you while
you can, gentleman!” John commanded. “I have you outsmarted one to two!”

A voice sounding
much like Lieutenant Jennings replied from an unexpected location of the
grounds. “You mean we have you outnumbered three to one John.  It's not
like you to miscalculate, do you need an old-fashioned pair of glasses by
chance?  Maybe you brought those antique binoculars with you?”

John frowned a
bit. He hadn't spotted a third person if there was a third person. This was
going to be a tough situation to get out of even with an ace card up his
sleeve. He considered the previous room.  He should have grabbed a weapon
off the wall, maybe it wasn't too late.

He deftly peaked
around the corner of his straw protector, confirming the two opponents.
The third one was still hidden somewhere.

“I
can flush them out without running back,” he thought to
himself.  One of the weapons on the previous wall was a massively
effective, if not banned, weapon of mass destruction... the BFG.

John focused his
thoughts to create a picture of the gun. The massive plasma surge would slowly
build then explode in a one hundred eighty degree arc.  Spinning into an
exposed line of sight, he focused on the hidden figures in the courtyard and
unleashed his weaponized thoughts upon them.

John expecting to
see both men to diving for cover.  Instead he was stunned as both of them
pivoted around their cover, drew their crossbows, and struck him in the chest
with bolts.

John pulled the
holographic shafts from his chest.  He held them out to his side with a
look of consternation upon his face.

“Take note of this
Ensign,” Lieutenant Jennings chuckled. “It might be the only time you find the
commander short on words.”

As the two men
approached John, they discarded their crossbows on the ground.

“I'm fairly sure
my bolt struck first, Sir,” Ensign Cruz lobbied.

Kyle checked
John's holographic wounds, and then shrugged in agreement, “I'm fine with that.
At least the Ninja Master will be happy with us.  Perhaps we will be
rewarded with extra tofu tonight!”

“I don't
understand,” John finally got out. “You two should be barbequed ninja about
now. How did you escape my BFG?” He shook his head.

Both men shot John
a confused look in response to his question. Kyle finally replied with his own
question. “What’s a' BFG’?”

“Octagon program
termination. Authorization login: Quinn. Passcode: Thunderdome,” John said
deactivating the holo-program.  The illusions disappeared and were
replaced by crisscrossing platforms, wires, and mesh used for the physical base
of the program.  All of these features retracted into the walls of the
room, assuming an empty space.

“Now I have two
problems to ponder,” John said to his men. “I appreciate the workout
though.  First round is on me at the Chiller tonight. Don't be
late!”

*

Chapter 16   Plans of Mice and Men

The H.S. Argo
tested its maneuvering thrusters.  Soon the plasma engines would be
brought online and a series of controlled blasts would decelerate the ship for
its approach to Mars.

With its
experimental engines, the Argo had sped ahead of the MARC fleet arriving
several days ahead of its scheduled arrival. Dominic purposely made his way to
the bridge for the event. He typically avoided conversations with the crew when
possible. For the purposes of ensuring he arrived in one piece, however,
Dominic chose to lend his guidance as required.

“Dr. Andreou,”
Captain Dranius greeted him. “Soon we’ll have an excellent view of the Mars
elevator. We are honored you have joined us for the arrival.”

“Of course.”
Dominic raised his hand as if to signal his acknowledgment of the Captain.

Walking over to
the viewing screen, the elevator's image emerged against the backdrop of Mars.
Its construction was considered a technological wonder, having been discussed
and proposed for decades. The gravity of Mars lent itself to overcoming any
construction challenges.

One of the major
selling points of terraforming Mars was obtaining resources for Earth.
The elevator was the most efficient way to transport ore from the surface of
Mars to the transport ships in space.  Concurrently, this eliminated the
costly and inefficient use of ground to orbit space ships.

As the Argo closed
on the planet, the space elevator grew sharper in detail. Without question the
largest structure built in space, the MARC station was the central hub for all
travel to and from Mars.  The multipurpose station served not only as a
port, but as a necessary counterweight for the space elevator.

Several ore
carriers were attached to the station.  Each ship would be loaded with the
materials coming up from the elevator.  When they were filled, the ships
would undock and separate from the station with thrusters. Once reaching a safe
distance, the plasma beams mounted on the station would fill the carriers'
expanded sails. Like the MARC fleet, their elapsed time between planets would
be a fraction of their rocket propelled cousins.

“The MARC station
has persisted in contacting us since radio silence was initiated,” Captain
Dranius informed Dr. Andreou.

“I trust you have
continued to feed them static,” the doctor replied.

“We sent our
initial distress call indicating our sails were inoperative,” the captain
confirmed, then followed with complete silence.   “As you foresaw Dr.
Andreou, they did not initiate a plasma burst to slow us down.  Analysis
of their communications indicates the MARC elevator has been unable to contact
the colonial fleet.”

“Avoid an
intercept course with the station. I'd rather not be mistakenly obliterated in
self-defense,” Dominic ordered the captain.

“We need only
penetrate their outer shields to override their computer systems,” he warned
the captain.

The orders
were given to the crew without deviation.

“Course plotted
Dr. Andreou,” Captain Dranius confirmed. “We will be passing one hundred meters
away from the station. That will place us inside their shields and far enough
from the station for comfort.”

Dominic nodded and
returned to the bridge lift.

Turning back to
the captain he added, “Oh and Captain, after deploying our elevator we will
likely be greeted by an unwelcome escort.  See to it I am not bothered
until my research is finished.  I trust you have the creativity to ensure
that is accomplished.”

“Yes, Doctor,”
replied the captain in a crisp tone.

Standing upon the
lift, Dominic selected the lab level and impatiently waited for it to reach the
destination. As the lift reached the lab level, he saw the quick and efficient
movements of technicians throughout the area.  It was the culmination of
his expert guidance and command that had allowed this ship to function. He
prided himself in this.

The Argo was an
exemplar of the Order. Each member of the crew served in their natural
capacity. The captain was an acceptable Templar, knowledgeable of ship
and personal arms, a sworn protector of the Order.  The Technicians
sustained the people and systems of the ship, fulfilling any role deemed
necessary. It was a microcosm of things to come, a path his ancestors would
approve.

As Dominic entered
his lab, the cleanliness of his workstation did not meet his approval.
There was a smudge on the bottom right corner of the main vidcomm. His chair,
which should be squarely pushed under his table, was clearly off-center.
A slight buzzing sound was coming from an I-Know that had been carelessly left
on.  There were specs of dust, visible dust, floating through the
air.  Its particles were surrounding him… crushing him.  He was
breathing in this dust. It was unavoidable!

Dominic started to
hyperventilate.   He saw, from the corner of his eye, a technician
passing by.  He grabbed the technician by his collar and slung him to the
ground.  Dropping a knee into the man's chest, he screamed at him.

“What have you
done?” Dominic questioned before striking the man. “Why are you trying to drive
me insane?”

The man struggled
to protect his face with his arms.  Recovering from the initial shock of
the situation, he regained his wits and quickly said, “Doctor, please,
Doctor... you need a draft. Please take a draft of your ments.”

From somewhere in
a fog of discontent, Dominic heard this man's voice.  It was a familiar
voice. There was something about it that he recognized, something that rang
true about taking his ments.

Releasing the man,
Dominic, rose and frantically began searching the lab tables.  There were
so many of them, they all looked alike.  What was he looking for? He
needed his ments!  That's right, he needed a draft of his ments.

By this point, he
was viciously swinging his arms across the lab tables, smashing tools and
knocking equipment to the floor.  Several technicians, who had witnessed
the events, had sprinted to the doctor.  Using gentle restraints, from
experience, they kept the doctor from harm.  At the same time, another
technician had raced off and was now returning with a small object.
Without hesitation, he pressed the nozzle to the doctor's arm.  In seconds
the doctor stopped his struggles, his speech became clear in enunciation, and
his menacing looks were replaced by serenity.

The technician
slowly released the doctor.  Without saying a word, they quickly began to
restore the room to its pre-episodic condition. The injured technician pulled
himself up and with the help of a table stood upright.  Striving to hide
the pain which coursed through his ribs, he walked slowly over to Dominic.

“Dr. Andreou, the
last subject has expired,” he reported.

Blinking and
coming to terms with this new conversation, Dominic replied, “Yes,
unfortunately. I will require five new subjects promptly, Technician One.”

Looking over at
the time on the vidcomm, he added, “I will require fifteen minutes to reset the
trial. You will have them here within ten minutes.”

The technician
nodded and with difficulty walked out of the lab.

Dominic sat down
at the primary workstation of his lab.  He brought up three screens on his
workstation. One screen displayed real-time video of the MARC space station. A
second screen was labeled Automated Transport Protocol.  The third screen
provided a sweeping view of the Argo's bridge.

Selecting the
screen showing the bridge, Dominic summoned the captain, “Captain Dranius,
confirm my readings that we have passed under their energizers.”

The captain nodded
and moved quickly to the navigation workstation. Conferring with the
technician, the captain ensured the readings were accurate.

“We have passed
inside the station’s energizers, and our present speed will keep us within them
for five minutes. Should we decelerate?" he inquired.

“Five minutes is
more than enough, Captain,” the doctor replied. “Once we have cleared the
shields, engage the engines and establish our planned orbit.”

Removing a case
from his belt, Dominic opened it and removed his custom Ksync from
inside.  Its masterful decryption algorithms had already proved useful,
yet it also functioned as an effective skeleton key.

The second
vidscreen was connected to the ATC login. Within minutes the Ksync had broken
the security protocols.

“There you
are," Dominic congratulated himself. The technical schematics of the seven
ore carriers docked at the MARC station rotated on screen.  These carriers
were the prototypes for plasma beam propulsion, which was used by the colonial
fleet. Accessing each ship, Dominic made subtle changes to their pre-programmed
headings.

As the last ship
was selected, Dominic commented, “I have a special plan for you. Don't go
anywhere.”  He smiled as he finished its changes and disconnected.

As the Argo
continued its voyage beyond the MARC station, Dominic waited for his handiwork
to begin. The exterior warning lights of the station began to flash.
Their red light illuminated the station's plasma beams as they came online.
Separating from the station, the ore carriers fired their maneuvering thrusters.
One ship remained, however, its docking clamps holding fast.  Six carriers
positioned themselves in line for space travel.

The first carrier
to arrive at the launch point unfurled its sail in a three hundred sixty degree
span.  As the last section locked into place, several plasma beams shot
from the MARC station to the sail.  The burst of energy was captured by
the sails shooting it toward Earth.  The beams continued to push the ship
as it accelerated faster and faster.  After several minutes, the beams stopped.
The next vessel unfurled its sail, and the process repeated.  One by one,
the ships launched until all six ships journeyed toward Earth.

The Argo had since
fired its plasma engines and accelerated on a course around Mars. The MARC
station appeared smaller and smaller as the Argo left it behind.  Dominic
was satisfied with the plan's progress. His emotionless demeanor hid an
exuberance for the events to come.

*

Chapter 17   Out of the Minds of Babes

John stepped off
the lift and onto the bridge. Scanning the room he saw a crew that was pushing
themselves to remain ever vigilant.  Ever since Lieutenant Mercedes' team
had found, and incapacitated a program meant to explode the primary thrusters
of every ship, full crews manned all stations around the clock.  His eyes
found Captain Sterling speaking with Communications Officer Williams.
Moving around the bridge, he made his way to the captain and waited to be addressed.

Noticing the
commander, Captain Sterling finished her inquiry and dismissed Officer
Williams.

“Commander,” she
stated. “Do you have a report for me?”

“I have an update,
Captain,” John replied.  “My contact felt the need to talk in code on an
open channel. I am still working on understanding the message, but there are
two points that are clear to me.”

“I'll give you
partial credit, Commander, something is entirely better than nothing at this
point,” commented the captain in low tones.

Jonathon
continued, “It is clear that the Argo is operating on its own agenda.  In
fact, it would seem Dr. Andreou's team is involved in some sort of conspiracy.
I am not aware how deep this runs, but "world domination" was
referenced as their goal.”

“Unsettling
indeed, but which world, Commander?” asked the captain rhetorically.

The commander
continued the update. “It also sounds like the conditions at home are
cultivating a shift in power within our government.  It’s possible our
friends at mission control may be answering to a new agenda.”

John checked the
surrounding area for prying ears by habit. “Captain, I'm getting a bit
concerned about who we can trust out here.”

“Noted,
Commander,” contemplated the captain. The majority of this crew was handpicked
by me. I have confidence in these people, Commander, but only a fool assumes
absolutes.

Shifting
conversation topics, the captain directed. “Commander, you and your wife have
been working around the clock like everyone else.  I need you to keep that
finely tuned radar of yours in good working order.  Take a night off with
your family.  Get Ashley to talk about something other than data streams
for five minutes.”

Before the John
could object, the captain asserted, “Consider it an order, Commander.
Dismissed.”

Jonathon saluted
the captain before making his way back toward the lift.

#

The holo-program
in the fit room replicated an old Okinawan dojo.  The floors were wooden
and polished, yet with dents and dings from simulated years of abuse.  The
walls were sheets of delicate paper held fast by decorative wooden
frames.  A feature of this holo-program allowed the walls to function as
mirrors.  Any movement in the room was reflected perfectly, allowing for
instant feedback.

In the center of
the room, the Quinn family knelt on the floor.  Each member was dressed in
a white GI designed for grappling and striking techniques. Tied around their
waists were thick white belts. John’s was the only belt with any semblance of
color, resembling ground dirt more than a dye.  Ashley, Stephanie, and Jessica
sat in a straight line, in that order, facing John.

Ashley had trained
with John over the years in life protection.  She enjoyed the precision
required of the katas John taught her, reminiscent of the demands of her
childhood ballet lessons.  John was focused on the self-defense aspects
hidden within the movements. Ashley was more interested in the fitness benefits
of the workouts. They both valued the time spent together.

Stephanie had
taken an interest in John's “old man punch-wrestling,” as she described it. A
basic version was part of a fit class she had taken on the base.
Stephanie’s fit instructor had been a student of John's community program at
the base.  He idolized John, and Stephanie idolized the fit instructor.
Luckily for the instructor, John, or both of them, her fit instructor was
shipped overseas.  Although Stephanie's reason for joining had left, her
interest in working out had stayed.  John had no problem adding her to his
group of older, more accountable, students.

Jessica on the
other hand, loved working out with her father from the moment she'd
begun.  She had absolutely no idea why she was training, but had the
energy of a wound up top to release.

“Let's try
something different tonight,” John began. “Your mother and I have wrestled with
this idea for a bit now. When you were younger Stephanie, I didn't bring you
into my life protection class because... well because I wasn't sure I wanted
you to know these techniques.”

Stephanie looked
at her father with an odd expression for his odd remark.

“I figured out it
wasn’t ‘what techniques' I didn't want you to know, but 'what situations' I
didn't want you in," John added.

Stephanie
struggled to grasp his meaning.

John left his
kneeling position and began pacing.

“I remembered a
lesson my instructor had taught me,” John shared.  He explained,
“Self-defense is meant as a way to protect yourself.  You position
yourself to preserve your life. That is why I call it 'life protection' and not
'self-defense'. If that means run, you run.  If that means hide, you hide.
If they're stronger or faster, disable your attacker, then run. Your first
priority is always to escape to safety.”

John stopped
pacing as he continued, “I was worried showing you how to protect yourself
would lead to fighting not escaping.  I should have put my faith in you
Stephanie. I'm sorry.”  John paused for his words to be absorbed. “I
realized by keeping these lessons from you I wasn't keeping you safe, I was
keeping me safe. Safe from my insecurities, Steph.”

John made his way
over to a bag that was lying on the ground. Reaching into the bag, he pulled
out four familiar looking rectangular cases.  He walked back over to his
family, gently tossing each of them a case.

“As the years
passed, my teacher gave me more than just physical instruction.  He passed
down the history of his art,” John related as he knelt once again. The word
"history" had become their "buzz word" for boring.
Jessica started to rustle a bit in her position.  John noticed and
gave her a wink saying, “Don't worry, my history lesson is about over.”

“It was a
tradition for this life protection art to be passed down in a very personal
way,” John explained. “Father to son, son to grandson,” he continued. “When no
blood relative was available, an exception could be made for an exceptional
student. Your mother and I plan on maintaining the integrity of our
"Art" with this tradition."

Taking out his
neuroband, he drew it around his head and into position.

Closing his eyes for a
brief second before reopening them, John focused on his entire family. One at a
time, a beautiful butterfly flew around each of the family members and landed
on their hands.  Each butterfly was unique in color.  They gently
fluttered their wings as they rested contently.

“Mine is purple!”
cheered Jessica with an exuberant glee. She lifted her hand to eye-level hoping
to take a better look at the butterfly.

Even Stephanie
unwittingly crept out of her teenage shell for a moment of childlike wonder.

John smiled as he
took in the reactions of his children.  His gaze crossed with
Ashley's.  She tilted her head slightly as if to ask a question.
Without a word, John returned her glance with a request for patience.

John saw it first
in Stephanie’s eyes, then her eyebrows, and finally her hands as she
deliberately waved them through them through the air.  She could tell this
wasn’t a hologram.

“Wait a second,”
Stephanie paused. “This butterfly is way too real for a hologram. I mean I felt
it land on me, and I can feel it moving around in my hand. Not to mention the
colors and the detail, that's way too detailed for a hologram. What's going on,
Dad?”

“You might say
that a ghost is visiting you, right Jessica?” John peeked over at his youngest
daughter.

Jessica thought a
second before grasping the reference. “You mean like the time Mr. Ghost came to
visit me.”

“Brilliance that
must be hereditary,” John smiled in Jessica's direction. “I mean of course, you
must get that from your mother.”  John grinned at Ashley.

While he joked no
one noticed Stephanie's reaction to her father's praise for Jessica. Her face
had turned red as she began twisting her fingers.

Putting a serious
face back on, John continued, “If you take one part “necessity” and mix it with
one part “by accident,” you have the recipe for how your mother and I
discovered how to do this. It turns out you don't need a computer, or even a
receiving neuroband to send your thoughts to another person.”

Stephanie and
Jessica looked at each other, their expressions now one part amazed, one part confused.

“Those butterflies
are from my imagination,” he added. “I remember them from the butterfly
sanctuary we visited last year.  I had to add a little purple to yours,
Jessica, but that was an easy twist.”

“But they feel so
real, Dad,” Stephanie chimed in.

“That's because,
in a way, you are really feeling it,” John explained.  “When I project my
thoughts to you, they stimulate the neurons in your body, just like the NEUBI
does at school. Your brain receives the signals just as if you had actually
felt the butterfly walking on your hand.  The part that is throwing you
off, is that we're not laying down, relaxing, and relying on a computer to
process the signal.”

“I don't get it,”
Jessica chimed in.

John gave her an
analogy to think about. “Think of it like your princess time with Wispy. You
know how your toy creates the castle, the walls, and the decorations?”

Jessica nodded her
head.

“Well pretend you
didn't need the holocastle anymore and you could play princess anytime,
anywhere.” He tried to get his idea across her. “You wouldn't even need the
real dresses anymore because you would just imagine them for everyone.”

Jessica seemed
quite excited about that proposition.

Pulling out a mini
I-Know from under his GI, John cleared his throat.

“Okay, so I've been
working on this for many, many seconds, because I wanted something catchy to
help you remember this stuff,” John said with a wink in his eye.  “No
laughing until I'm done at least.”

Jessica and
Stephanie looked at each other again, both thinking the same thing.

“Sure, Dad,”
agreed Stephanie.

Quickly followed
by Jessica, “Yeah, Dad, sure.”

Both of them had
secretly crossed their fingers on both hands.

John gazed at them
with a concerned eyebrow one last time. He then recited his poem.

Think
of a time and something you've seen

How
it looks, how it sounds, and add on the three

The
more you describe, the more they believe

If
both can't imagine, then nothing may be

The girls looked
at each other and then on cue, burst into laughter.  Even Ashley had
trouble restraining herself.

“Hey, I'm just a
sensitive kind of guy,” John put on his best injured look.

“So I guess when
Kyle and the rest of the sentinels come by, I should let them know you're to be
addressed as Commander Sensitive now?” Ashley quipped.

“Actually, I've
been hoping for a promotion to Captain Sensitive,” John parried. “I like the
ring of that.”

Jessica couldn't
help jumping up now after kneeling for so long.

“So what does your
silly poem mean, Dad?” she asked.

“Well, your mom
and I found out early on, that it was easier to send thoughts of what you know
then what you don’t,” John replied “Think of it like this, you can't describe
orange juice very well if you haven't tasted it first.”

“I want some
orange juice,” Jessica interjected. “I'm thirsty.”

“We'll take a
break in a minute,” John placated her. “So thinking of a time and something
you've seen means, don't just make it up.  That doesn't work real well.”

“Dad I have a
question,” Jessica slipped into her school self.

“Um, okay you
don't have to raise your hand kiddo,” John teased her.

“I wanted to know
why you're teaching us.” Jessica added.

John thought for a
second before replying, “What do you mean?”

“I thought Mom was
the smart one,” Jessica said in a matter of fact voice.

“What, eh,” John
stammered, but could not finish his thought as Ashley was leaning over,
laughing hysterically.

John stood there
for a moment, hands down to his sides, chin down to his chest. Meanwhile,
Ashley managed to compose herself.  She stood up and went over to Jessica
and gave her a big hug.

“It turns out your
father is smarter than we thought,” Ashley joked.

“Et tu Brute,”
John looked up and gave Ashley a tearful look.

“I mean,” Ashley
continued. “I can't explain it either, but for some reason your father seems to
be a natural when it comes to this.”

John looked up and
in his best haughty voice said, “You wouldn't be the first person to
underestimate my massive intellect.”

Before the jokes
could fly he added, “But perhaps we should get back to serious business.”

He whispered to
Ashley as he passed her, “We can debate who's smarter later.” He gave her a
wink.

“Okay, let's try
this out, what do you say?” John began.  “These neurobands were recently
cooked up by your mother.  They're basically the ones we use, but have
some extra safety features added in. In fact I think your mom threw in
everything including an airbag.”

“What's an
airbag?” Stephanie asked.

“Oh, yeah, it was
something they put into cars back in the day to keep people from getting
knocked around,” John explained.

“Dad,” Jessica
added on to her sister's question.

“Yeeeees?” John
replied.

“What's a car?”
Jessica asked.

John rubbed his
head a bit. “I'll keep my archaic references to a minimum. Jess, a car is a
machine people used to travel around in.”

“OK,” Jessica
seemed easily satisfied with the answer.

“Go ahead and put
your neurobands on,” John instructed, as he removed his neuroband.

“Jessica, you're
thirsty, right?” John knew the answer, but asked anyways.

Jessica started
toward the exit questioning, “Is it break time?”

“No, not quite,
but I needed to know for sure,” John responded.

Jessica was about
to issue a complaint before John interrupted her.

“When I first
tried this, I needed something too, Jessica.” John tried to reel her back in.
“I needed to find a way to say "hi" to you and make sure you were
OK  I think that necessity was a key in me figuring out how to do this. So
if you really want orange juice, I'll bet you can describe it pretty good right
now.”

“Yeah, I can almost
taste a glass right now,” Jessica hopped slightly as she replied.

“I need you to
describe it to me, go ahead, how does it look?”  John asked.

“It's orange of
course,” Jessica replied.

“Yes, it's
orange,” John remarked, “but does it look thick or runny, can you see through
it?”

“No pulp!” Jessica
relayed. “I don't like pulp in mine, so, I guess it’s pretty runny, but not
like water.  And you can't see through it, not like water either.”

“How does it
smell?” John asked.

“Like oranges,
silly,” Jessica giggled.

John chucked a bit
too. “I should have seen that coming.  Okay, smarty-pants, I bet you'll
say the same thing for how it tastes too.”

Jessica nodded her
head, still smiling ear to ear.

“Well this may be
a bit harder, how does it feel when you drink it. What's its texture if you
know what I mean?” John upped the challenge.

“With pulp,”
Jessica pretended to spit out, “it’s like drinking food. You can taste that
yucky pulp.  Without pulp, the way I like it, it’s nice and smooth.”

“Alright,
Jessica,” John said slowly. “Now you're going to try to give your mother a
glass of orange juice. We'll get you a real glass afterward. Sound fair?”

Jessica nodded her
head.

John directed her
through the process. “Close your eyes.  Think of a nice glass of orange
juice.  How does it look?  Can you take a whiff of it? Smells like
oranges doesn't it.”

Jessica nodded
again with her eyes shut.

John continued,
“Now think of how that orange juice will go down nice and smooth, no pulp, just
the way you like it.”

Jessica licked her
lips a bit.

“Now open your
eyes and I want you to hand your mother a glass of that juice, think of giving
it right to her.” John finished his cues.

Jessica opened her
eyes.  She reached her right hand out toward her mother as if she was
holding a glass.  Ashley in turn reached out and took the imaginary glass
of orange juice.

She smiled. “I can
see it. What a refreshing looking glass of OJ.”

Lifting her hand
up to her mouth she took a drink of the beverage visible only to Jessica and
herself.

“Delicious!”
Ashley commented as she let out a sigh of satisfaction.

“It worked!”
Jessica jumped up and down, “It worked!”

“Way to go
squirt!” Stephanie kidded her.

Jessica was so
excited she didn't even catch her sister's comment. John went over to his
youngest and rubbed her head before giving her a hug.

“Alright let's
take a well-earned break,” John suggested. “After that, it's Stephanie's turn!”

John pulled Stephanie
into the group with an outstretched arm.  The Quinns walked to the exit of
the dojo ready to enjoy a well-earned beverage.

*

Chapter 18   A Battle for the Ages

John crouched
behind what was left of the stone wall.  Cannon balls flew across the
battlefield, leveling what remained of the outpost.  Behind the relative
safety of the wall, he watched as a regiment of British Calvary moved into
position.  Their red coats not only announced their presence, but kept
them safe from friendly fire.

From behind him he
could see what was left of the Spartan infantry.  The crimson armor of the
warriors offered little protection from the superior firepower. Their ranks had
been decimated by long range cannon fire and rifle shot though a few British
soldiers caught the end of an expertly tossed spear.

The cannon fire
had stopped.  The ranks of British Cavalry were now prepared to charge. On
the opposite side, the Spartan warriors had formed a Phalanx formation.
Spears were planted and Xiphos kept close at hand for the combat to come.

The charging
hooves were matched in volume by a battle cry from the Spartans.  John
spun around looking for a way to escape.  It was no use; he was caught
squarely at ground zero of the impending battle.

John looked around
for a weapon.  He desperately tried to find a shield, sword, or musket,
something to protect himself with.  John searched all sides of the
crumbled wall, racing to beat the oncoming rush.  Time ran in slow motion,
however, as the soldiers were taking an eternity to reach him.  He knew
this was a dream.

Appearing from
nowhere, a man walked up to John.  He extended a shield and a Xiphos to
John.

“You will be a
natural leader of warriors, John,” a familiar voice beckoned him.
Studying the man's face, he immediately recognized him. The voice belonged to
Dominic.  John stood his ground refusing to accept the weapons.

Feeling a moist
breath of air on his neck, John spun around.  Behind him was a cavalry
officer of the British regiment sitting upon his steed.  The man pulled
out a pistol from his belt and offered it to John, handle first.

“You will need
this Governor,” the officer said. “We expect you'll secure the colonies under
executive order from the president.”

John tilted his
head and said, “President? Don't you mean king?”

“Would you serve a
tyrant, John?” interjected Dominic, his gaze snatched around. “Why would you
follow the degenerative remains of democracy when you can defend the virtuous?”

The dream was
clouding his judgment. He couldn't understand.  The thundering sounds of
the cavalry and the battle cries of warriors were filling his head.

John screamed,
“Enough!”

Sitting up in his
bed, John tried to shake off the fog of sleep.  The vidcomm beside his bed
was sounding a priority page. The message read: “Commander Quinn, Report to
the Bridge Immediately.” It repeatedly scrolled across the vidcomm until he
clicked it off. Looking over at Ashley she was still sound asleep.
Apparently the page was for him only, or the vidcomm would have broken her
sleep cycle as well.

“Lucky,” John whispered
to her.

Motioning his
closet open, John reached in and pulled out a sentinel uniform.  When
paged in the middle of the night, his protocol called for combat dress.
Pulling the pants on, they seamlessly shrunk to fit his form.  The same
was true of his shirt.  Unlike a standard issue MARC uniform, the material
of his sentinel uniform was resistant to slash, puncture, and even crushing
blows. A special feature of this version was the personal defense mesh built
into the fibers of the uniform.  When activated, anyone touching or
touched by the uniform would be the unlucky recipient of a stun charge.
This would result in a shutdown of all non-vital muscular movement. Lastly,
protocol required a pulse weapon be carried while in sentinel uniform.
John quickly grabbed a pulse pistol before heading out the bedroom
doorway.

As John trotted
down the hall toward the lift, he tried to process the crazy dream he was
having.  He knew there was some message worth decoding, but he wouldn't
ignore a priority page.

John activated his
Ksync setting a reminder. “Remind me. Don't forget about the dream.”  A
second later, the Ksync confirmed his command. “Hourly reminder set.”

Finding the lift
empty in the middle of the night, John stepped on. He punched the icon for the
bridge and waited impatiently to reach his destination.

Jumping off the
lift to the bridge, John saw four people standing by the main vidcomm. Captain
Sterling motioned him over.

“A bit overdressed
aren’t we, Commander?” greeted Navigation Officer Simmons.

John gave him a
fake smile and a nod.

Ignoring both men,
Captain Sterling addressed the group. “We may have an emergency situation
here.”  Swiping the vidcomm controls, the captain switched it to tactical
view.

“We have six
incoming ore carriers in route to Earth,” she began. “All six passing through
our space.  A routine event until the Nav computer put out an alert for
collision course.  It turns out not one, but all six transport ships are
on a direct heading for the fleet.  Add that to the fact that these ships
are ahead of schedule makes this by design not by chance.”

“But those ships
are coming from the MARC station,” commented Ensign Williams.

“Exactly,” replied
the captain, “We have to consider the possibility the MARC station is
compromised.  We've sent them a priority transmission and should hear back
any minute.”

“If that's the
case,” Commander Quinn added to the discussion, “we may have a bigger
problem.  If the MARC station is compromised, will we have a plasma burst
to slow us down?”

“We haven't
figured out how the rest of the fleet will slow down, regardless,” commented
Ensign Williams.

The captain tapped
the ore carriers on screen. “Let's take one problem at a time.  This one
takes top priority. Ensign Simmons, can we use maneuvering thrusters to alter
our course?”

The Navigation
Officer paused and then responded. “It's possible, but at these speeds any
adjustments could risk our intercept with Mars.  With enough simulations,
we may be able to fire a burst to avoid collision and then a burst to course
correct after they pass.”

“Get those
simulations running, Navigator,” the captain said briskly.

Ensign Simmons
returned to his navigation workstation while the remainder of the group stayed
at the main vidcomm.

Captain Sterling
glanced at the time, “We should be receiving a response from the MARC station
any second now.”

The group watched
the time on the monitor in silence. Five seconds passed, then ten, then twenty.

After a minute had
passed, the captain turned away from the monitor toward the crew. “There are
two likely scenarios here,” the captain announced. “One, they cannot
communicate. Two, they will not communicate. Until we get confirmation
otherwise, I'm going to give them the benefit of a doubt.  We just
restored our coms a few days ago.  For now let's assume they have the same
problem.”

Lack of sleep,
stress, or both drifted John's attention.

“Dominic
as a Spartan, that'll be the day,” John thought.

His thoughts
turned to words, however, as his attention shifted back.

“They're not on the
same side,” he said in a low tone.

Captain Sterling
paused her conversation with Ensign Williams. “Commander?” she questioned him.

The captain's
voice, snapped John's attention fully to the bridge.

“Sorry, Captain,”
the commander apologized. “I'm still trying to puzzle through my other
assignment.”

“You're not worth
much to me like this,” the captain chided him. “In fact, you and Lieutenant are
dismissed.  Go get a couple more hours shut eye and report back to
me.  I can't have my two best detectives missing clues due to sleep
deprivation.”

Lieutenant
Mercedes motioned to John. “After you, Mr. Holmes.”

“No, after you Dr.
Watson, I insist,” replied the commander.

“Get going before
I throw you both in Scotland Yard and lose the key,” reprimanded the captain as
she pointed to the lift.

“Aye, Captain,”
replied the commander, not wanting to push her sense of humor in the middle of
the night.

*

Chapter 19   Correctional Courses

The Nav computer
gave the fleet several days warning to prepare for their next crisis.
Ashley's team skipped the transport collision to the head of their think tank
problem solving. After dozens of simulations had been tested, the team was
confident within a three percent margin of error that the transports could be
avoided.  Utilizing the fleets maneuvering thrusters in precise bursts,
their course would be altered by the smallest margin to allow the transports to
pass.  Once they passed, small thruster bursts would restore their
original course.  Given the warning time they had, it was a relatively
safe maneuver.  If the fleet had been caught off-guard, however, the
results could have been disastrous.

The window for
course adjustment had opened. On the bridge of the U.S.S. Columbus, the main
vidcomm had visuals on each ship in the fleet.  Dr. Quinn's team was
coordinating the operation with the navigators of each vessel.

“The fleet is on
standby for the thruster countdown, Captain,” stated Ensign Williams.

Captain Sterling
acknowledged the Ensign and gave the go ahead to Dr. Quinn.

“Take it away, Dr.
Quinn,” she ordered.

“Ensign, I'm
starting the thruster countdown now,” informed Dr. Quinn as she faced the
navigator. “Standby on manual controls.”

“Ready here,”
replied Ensign Simmons.

The computer's
voice activated at the ten second mark, “Firing thrusters in ten, nine, eight,
seven, six, five, four, three, two, one …firing thrusters.”

As the computer
indicated, the maneuvering thrusters on the U.S.S. Columbus fired.  Each
ship in the fleet simultaneously activated their thrusters.

Ensign Simmons
reported “Navigation systems indicate the fleet is changing course within
acceptable parameters, Captain.”

“Very good,
Ensign,” the she replied.  “Now we glide our way to safety, let the
transports pass, and get back on course.  Excellent work
everyone.   We have four hours until those ships arrive.  Return
to station. Ensign Williams will page you for the next stage. Dismissed.”

“Dr. Quinn,” the
captain stopped Ashley before heading toward the lift, “how are the contingency
plans for deceleration coming along?”

“Our simulations
haven't found a reliable means for the disabled ships to orbit Mars,” Ashley
replied. “At this point, our best contingency is for the ships to use a
gravitational assist from Mars to slow down, then sling shot around Jupiter for
a return trip to Earth.  The return trip will be significantly longer than
our travel time to Mars.”

The captain paced
a bit before replying, “Why can't we use the atmosphere of Mars to slow down
the disabled ships in time to orbit Mars?”

“Those simulations
haven't resulted in a desired outcome. The fleet wasn't designed for
atmospheric travel a tradeoff which made this mission possible.”

“Captain, it would
help immensely if had more people running simulations,” Ashley lobbied. “Any
success on getting a transmission back from Mars? Or Earth for that matter?”

“Not yet, Doctor,”
answered Captain Sterling. “It's not a problem on our end.  Keep this need
to know we've enough stress on the crew. Putting Earth on the list of problems
is more than I want to add.”

Ashley nodded.

“Keep running
simulations until you figure something out, or we're forced into a decision,”
the captain decided. “Good luck.”

As Ashley stepped
to the lift, she heard the captain send for John.

“Ensign Williams,
page Commander Quinn to the bridge,” she directed.

“Aye, Captain,”
acknowledged the Ensign.

#

Minutes later
Commander Quinn and Lieutenant Jennings stepped onto the bridge. Both of them
were dressed in sentinel uniforms and visibly perspiring.   The
Lieutenant waited by the lift as the commander made his way to the captain.

“Trying to get
these sentinels in shape, Captain,” the commander greeted her. “I have a
feeling we will need all the preparation we can get for planet-side.”

The captain
nodded. “After we get on the ground and are established, I have an assignment
for your team.  I have several captains that are set on finding Dr.
Andreou and serving him a special brand of military justice.”

“I was hoping you
were going to say that,” the commander replied. “My team is ready for that
assignment.”

The captain
qualified her orders. “Commander, I know this one is personal, but every bit of
regulation in me says your team shouldn't be within a hundred kilometers of
this assignment.”

“Captain?” the
commander uttered uncertain with the conversation's direction.

“Relax,
Commander,” related the captain. “You're also the most qualified for this
assignment by far.  The fleet officers are aware of the kidnapping attempt
on your wife.  They're ignoring conflict of interest, knowing you could go
after him like a bulldog.  That's just it John.  I need you to find
out what the heck is going on.  I don't need you going in guns
blazing.  If you don't think you can handle that, now's the time to tell
me.”

John marshaled his
resolve before acknowledging the captain's orders.

“I'll drag him
back by his forked tongue and bloated ego…breathing if I must,” he related in
earnest.

“I'll take that as
your word,” she accepted. “When we dock with the MARC station I will personally
obtain the arrest warrant from the admiral.   The Argo will be
impounded and I'll make sure you have access to resources needed to find him.”

“I'll chase him
'round the stars if I have to, Captain," John assured her.

“By the way,
Commander,” Anita added, “what were you rambling about the other night?”

John sifted
through his thoughts for an explanation.

“My brain is
working the problem while I sleep," he reported. "My dream was giving
me its take on the puzzle,” John related to the captain. “I think whatever
Dominic and the Argo are up to is bigger than us.  We're pawns at best in
some sort of power struggle. A chess game where we can't see the board or know
who's playing.

“Not a game I want
to play,” pondered the captain. “Until we can get MARC Control on either planet
to start sending us transmissions, we're literally in the dark. And John, as I
told your wife earlier, communications status is on a need to know basis right
now.”

“Understood,
Captain,” John replied.

"Resume your
training, Commander," the captain dismissed him. "We'll need your
team in top shape for what's ahead."

“Aye Captain,”
John acknowledged. “Captain, you're mortal too. You can join us anytime.
Healthy body, healthy mind and all that,” he waved toward the lift.

“If we can get
some good luck around here and a few problems solved, I'd love to,” responded
the captain as she waved him on.

#

The tech team
reassembled on the bridge.  Preparations for the passing carriers and
subsequent course correction were complete. All that remained were three long
minutes.

“Okay team, this
is where we earn our pay,” Ashley directed to her co-workers. One station at a
time, each team member reported their status as ready.

“Did those
transports grow a few hundred meters?” asked Ensign Williams sarcastically.

“They just look
bigger when they're aiming for ya,” answered Ensign Simmons.

“Cut the chatter,”
retorted Captain Sterling, reigning in their focus. Slowly pacing across the
bridge, the captain examined the various stations and screens. “I don't want
any surprises. Any sign of movement by those transports outside of their
projected courses is to be reported at once.”

“Aye, Captain,”
responded Ensign Simmons. “The transports are within ten thousand kilometers
now and following predicted trajectory.”

The main vidcomm
showed the ominous size of the ore carriers.  The entire fleet would fit
inside a single cargo hold.

“It's too bad we
can't have one of them taxi the fleet to Mars,” commented the commander.

“That's not a half
bad idea, Commander,” Ashley jested. “It shouldn't be any harder than jumping
onto an oncoming runaway train from the back of a horse.”

“My old-fashioned
analogies are rubbing off on you,” smiled the commander.

As the captain was
about to redress them both, Ensign Simmons gave a report.

“Captain,
transports are now passing the fleet,” he informed. “All transports are
traveling on a predicted course.”

The captain
changed gears and walked over to the main vidcomm.  She carefully eyed
each transport, concerned one would veer off course, or explode.

It only took a few
seconds for the transports to pass each ship remaining at a comfortable
distance.

“The transports
have cleared the fleet without incident,” reported Ensign Simmons.

Captain Sterling
let out a short exhale and nodded her head.

“Stand down from
General Quarters,” ordered the captain. “Prepare thrusters for course
correction.”

The tension in the
bridge visibly diffused.  A few people patted each other on the back,
others shook hands or gave a slight smile.

The tech team
refocused for the course correction.  Dr. Quinn and Ensign Williams
organized a final systems check throughout the fleet.

Meanwhile, Captain
Sterling had motioned the commander to her side.

“Commander,” the
captain began in a serious tone, “you’re a command officer on this ship.
The crew looks up to you, and if this were a comedy club I'm sure you'd get
more applause than me. I run a tight ship during general quarters. So do my
officers. Do we understand each other, Mister?”

John stood tall
and silent, except for a single response, “Perfectly clear, Captain.”

“Dismissed,
Commander,” said the captain as she walked back to main vidcomm.

“That
was stupid, John,” he told himself. “You should have
focused more.”

Stepping onto the
lift, he saw the wear of command in her eyes. Anita didn't have the luxury of
workouts to de-stress. Quite the opposite she was carrying the weight of the
fleet on her shoulders. The kind of workout that aged a person quickly.

John's lift left
the bridge.  Ashley hadn't caught what was said between John and the
captain, but it wasn't warm and fluffy whatever it was.  She couldn't let
herself worry about it now. They were preparing to fire maneuvering
thrusters.  These bursts were trickier than the first round.  If a
ship went off course earlier, there was time to simulate a course correction.
Given their current distance to Mars, they needed a precise burn on the first
try.

“Captain, I've
fleet wide confirmation of readiness for course correction,” reported Ensign
Williams.

“Dr. Quinn, go
ahead with the firing sequence,” ordered Captain Sterling.

Ashley looked at
Navigator Simmons. “Ready?” she asked.

He nodded his
head. “Ready.”

Ashley stated,
“Standby on manual controls, activating computer countdown now.”

Once again the
ship's thrusters fired in concert with the fleet, although this time with
different results.

“Captain, the
Melbourne's thrusters are off-line!” announced Ensign Simmons.

“Confirmed,”
reported Ensign Williams. “The Melbourne is reporting a malfunction with their
maneuvering thrusters.”

The vidcomm
displayed the Melbourne's heading. As the rest of the fleet moved off, the
Melbourne continued on the same course.  Ashley felt a moment of déjà
vu.  She recalled her projection to the Argo as though it was reality.
Ashley vividly remembered the image of her pod separating from the Columbus.
The sinking feeling that you could be lost in space, the smug pride Dominic had
as he explained her transport to the Argo. It was the energizers, used like a
giant magnet, which had been repurposed to attract rather than repel.

Ashley shook off
the fog and without warning knocked Navigator Simmons out of his seat.

“I have an idea,”
Ashley stated without further explanation.

The captain
quickly moved to her side.

“Doctor,” calmly
interjected the captain, “care to clue us in on what you're doing?”

Ashley worked the
navigation controls at a feverish rate.

“Not much time,
Captain,” she quickly said. “I need fleet command override, I need it now,
Captain.”

Without hesitation
Anita leaned into the navigation workstation.

“Override to
navigation,” the captain said. “Authorization Sterling.”

With computer
confirmation the captain relayed, “You have override, Doctor.”

Ashley executed
her program. The ship immediately buckled under strain.  Its groans
permeated the bridge from all sides.

“Dr. Quinn?” the
captain stressed for an explanation.

Ensign Williams
spun in his chair toward the captain. “Reports are coming in from all ships of
an unknown force acting upon them.”  He paused for a moment before
continuing, “We're receiving reports of malfunctioning energizers across the
fleet, Captain.”

“They're not
malfunctioning,” reported Dr. Quinn with a smile. “Look at the Melbourne!”

Like a fish
being reeled in on a line, the vidcomm showed the jerking motion of the ship as
it caught up with the fleet.

“Reconfiguring
energizers,” Ashley informed the captain.

The ship buckled
again as the slight, eerie sound faded.

“And fleet
override disengaged,” she reported. The Melbourne jerked one last time, as
though let off its hook, its heading now in line with the fleet.

The captain let
out a laugh as though casting off her own weighted hook. "Well done,
Ashley," she commended. The Melbourne came across the vidcomm reporting
only minor damage and injury. The crew joined in with congratulations.

“Now about that
explanation, Doctor,” Anita stated. “I’m about to field calls from a hoard of
outraged captains. What exactly did we just do?”

“Let's say I
turned a negative into a positive,” Ashley joked, but seeing the captain hadn't
fully recovered her sense of humor she quickly continued. “Dr. Andreou used his
ship energizers to pull my escape pod to the Argo. It hit me that we could use
the same idea to help the Melbourne. It's fairly simple really to reconfigure
the shields, but the problem in this case was more of an energy to mass
relationship.  The energizers of one ship can easily pull an escape pod,
but not an entire ship.  I needed the field strength that only the fleet
could generate."

“So you turned the
fleet into a giant magnet?” questioned the captain.

“More or less,”
she replied. Ashley thought about qualifying the comparison, but she quickly
thought better of it.

“It’s a good thing
we have you along, Dr. Quinn.” smiled the captain.  “Ensign Williams, I'm
certain you have several captains on hold.  Give them to me one at a
time.” Examining her crowded bridge the captain directed. “Tour's over. My
bridge was clean when you came let's make sure it's clean when you leave.”

Ashley gave the
captain a smile, happy to see the other side of her friend returning.

“It's a good thing
we have you too, Captain Sterling,” she said to herself. “Most people would
have cracked right about there.”

*

Chapter 20   In and Out of Trouble

The lab's vidcomm
pulsated announcing a call from the bridge of the H.S. Argo.

“Dr. Andreou, we
have arrived at the designated orbital position,” informed Captain Dranius by
audio.

Dominic finished
the last of his calculations before responding. “Hold position here,
Captain.  I'll be transferring energizer control to the lab shortly.”

“Holding position,
understood,” confirmed the captain.

Rising from his
chair, Dominic walked across the lab and passed through the entrance doors to
the bay. Striding out to the center, he glanced with satisfaction at his
wonderful experiment.  He gently kissed a massive cable that wound its way
to the ceiling like a giant cobra.

“You shall be a
glorious ride into the heavens,” he announced to an empty bay. “I have given
you the strength of Atlas and the agility of Hermes. You shall dance around
Phobos by night and by day. As you fall upon Mars, my station will rise.”

Dominic returned
to the protective confines of his lab. Once inside he activated the exterior
doors leading from the bay into space.  As the doors retracted, a majestic
view of Mars filled the opening.

After pausing to
contemplate the planet's beauty, he began unfurling his creation.  Several
cables began to stretch out into space from the lab.  They dropped from
the Argo toward the surface like giant anchors.

Turning back to
his vidcomm, Dominic scrutinized the orbital patterns of two objects circling
Mars.  Each one had its own countdown timer on screen. One object was
named Deimos and the other Phobos.

“There is plenty
of time my child,” Dominic spoke to the unraveling coils through his vidcomm.

The vidcomm pulsed
as it had minutes before.  Once again the Argo's captain spoke by audio
only. “Dr. Andreou, please pardon the interruption, but I have an update on the
MARC Station.”

Restraining his
impulse to disconnect the comm, Dominic impatiently replied, “Captain, I trust
this is important, what is it?”

“The MARC Station
has restored communications,” the captain related to the scientist. “And…” he
hesitated, “reports indicate the MARC fleet continues on course for Mars.”

As Dominic felt
the blood rushing to his head, his fingers gripped the corner of the
workstation tightly.  Having recently taken his ments, the impulses firing
his anger remained in check. He made his mind think of his creation, how it
would empower him, how it was the key to his plan. As he focused on his
passion, Dominic's anger subsided. The technique had worked yet again.

"How can the
man responsible for your madness teach you to be sane?" he posed
rhetorically. "Why does fate twist people together and then twist them
apart?" He shook his head from the rambling thoughts. He had been speaking
with the captain.

“Understand,
Captain,” he finally continued, “I will contact you when I am finished, do not
interrupt me again.”

“Understood,”
replied Captain Dranius, thankful he had used the audio feed.

Dominic's gaze
drifted back to the panoramic view of Mars. In its majesty, his focus drifted
to the MARC fleet.

“It must have been
her,” he said in muted tones. “No one else could have found the presents I left
for them.”

Dominic turned in
his chair and watched the cables continue to plunge toward Mars.  Using
Martian elements in construction gave them ten times the strength of their
predecessor. Even the atmospheric transfer modules doubled the speed of the
MARC design.

Once the Order had
established a functional elevator of its own, there would no longer be a need
for the MARC station. It was an important step down a road with many more
meters to travel.

An idea struck
Dominic as he continued to watch his elevator take form.

“There may yet be
a use for that blight circling the horizon,” he told himself.  “Once the remnants
of the fleet dock, two annoyances can be removed by the same solution.”

#

Ashley sat up in
bed.

“I have it,” she
said rubbing John's shoulder to wake him.

John groaned and
managed a few guttural sounds that sounded like a response.

“John, wake up!”
Ashley continued to try to wake her husband, escalating her prods.

“Okay, Okay,” John
replied in more coherent form. “What's going on? What time is it?”

“Oh it's three
a.m.,” she responded hurriedly. “But I think I know a way to slow us all down.”

Rubbing his eyes,
Jonathon tried to focus on what his wife was trying to tell him.

“Slow down the
fleet?” he asked sluggishly.

“Yes, of course,
the fleet,” Ashley confirmed.

“I'll bite,
whatcha thinking?” John inquired.

Ashley dimly
illuminated the bedroom.  She then grabbed an I-Know sitting by the
bedside.  Leaning over to show John, she began to draw eleven sticks in an
oval pattern, circling four of the outside ones. On the other side of the
screen she drew a large circle and labeled it Mars.

“We're eleven ships
now, four of them have sails intact,” she started to explain. “Plasma beams are
sent out from the orbital station to slow our approach when we are in optimal
range.”  She drew little dotted lines from the Mars circle to the four
circled ships. “The ships with sails will catch the beams and begin to
slow.  The ships without sails will continue on at their same rate.”
Ashley drug seven of the sticks across the screen, closer to Mars, while four
remained. Then pointing to the seven sticks she highlighted them and said,
“...unless they can attach themselves to the four that still do.” She then drug
the seven sticks back to their original position. This time, she drew lines
connecting the ships together like a web.

John scratched his
head a bit before saying, “So I'm guessing you have that part figured out too,
or I'd still be asleep.”

Ashley gave him a
loving punch in the arm.

“That's the hope,”
she said. “If the fleet's energizers can yank a ship back on course, then they
should be strong enough to hold the fleet together during deceleration.
It will likely depend on the configuration of ships, but it should be possible.
It has to be possible.”

“So, I'll find you
in the lab running simulations when I wake up this morning?” John half-heartily
joked.

“Not if I wake you
up before then with the results,” she replied heading for the bathroom.

“Love you too,” he
managed to get out as he rolled back over in bed.

*

Chapter 21     All for One and
One for All

Ashley had left
for the lab several minutes ago.  Still in bed, John wrestled with his
thoughts in an attempt to fall back asleep. After an hour of fighting a losing
battle, he threw in the towel and decided to get up. The paranoia from what
Dominic may have saved for them, coupled with the uncertainty of how the fleet
would stop at Mars, was chipping away at the crew's sanity.  John was no
exception.

“I
have to get working on something or I'm going to go stir crazy,”
he thought to himself as the bathroom's cleansing unit meticulously washed him.

Once he was
dressed, John picked up his Ksync and paged his longtime friend and fellow
sentinel, Lieutenant Jennings.

“Kyle, it's wakey
wakey time,” he recorded for the page. “I'm set on an idea I know you'll be
crazy about.  Meet me at the fit room in thirty minutes.”

John finished
getting ready and then found his way to the kitchen.  Grabbing a light
breakfast, he didn't want to fill up before a work-out.  Also, he needed
to kill a few minutes before his friend would likely drag his sleepy-self to
the fit room.  Kyle loved his bright ideas.  Taking a last swig of
orange juice, he grabbed his pack and headed to the fit room.

#

“That's crazy!”
Kyle emphatically replied.  “You should know by now I'm the last person in
the fleet you should be recruiting.”

“Exactly my
point,” John countered as he set his pack down in the fit room. “I can't think
of anyone who would kick and scream more before having it abused.  You're
like a spare walking conscious. You're my ghostly Ben Kenobi, except you’re
still alive.”

Kyle's face
contorted at that last remark. “What do you mean I'm still alive?”  Kyle
added. “And who's this Ben guy?”

“Long story on the
Kenobi reference,” John replied. “We'll have to schedule a time to catch you
up.” John started off on a tangent. “Maybe we can get Ashley to join us, and
how about that Glennay, she's a cutie.  We could make it a double date,
just like we’re in high school.”

“John!” Kyle
uttered to break John's ramblings. “Focus... back to your crazy idea.  I'm
not about to start poking into people's minds with your mental voodoo
bands.  It's bad enough I've agreed to be a practice dummy, but there's no
way I'm going down that path.  If the captain finds out how far you two have
taken this project, she's going to flip her lid.”

“If we can get
through this mess we're in now,” John countered,  “then she's not only
going to find out, but I'm going to try to talk her into this as well.”

Kyle's face
indicated the humor of the situation was taking a more serious turn.

“I can't do it
John, I won't,” Kyle finished.

Pausing, John
tried condense his reasoning before he lost his opportunity to recruit Kyle.

“Kyle, look,” John
started. “I really do want you to consider this because of your beliefs.”

John slowly walked
across the room's floor as he spoke. “When we signed on for this trip we knew
it would be hard... dangerous even at times.  The dangers then were
ordinary ones. Would we really be able to colonize a terraformed planet?
Should we throw away our children's future on Earth for the promise of
Mars?  Ashley and I would have been fine on Earth.  We made the cut,
Kyle.  My father made sure of that. Even though the democratic principles
my grandfather stood for were crumbling around us, we would have been taken
care of. As for Jessica and Steph who knows?  I had to think about their
future. What were their opportunities going to be?”

Kyle nodded in
understanding as John talked.

“Now,” John
continued, “I don't know what I've signed my family up for. I felt comfortable
bringing them along until now.  Everything has sped up Kyle.
It's becoming harder to see things coming and react... harder to plan ahead.”

“We're all frayed
around the edges right now, John,” Kyle assured him. “I had a similar
conversation with Kevin earlier. This is going to work out. It's a little more
bumpy than planned, but the captain will see us through. ”

“Just wait till
you’re a parent Kyle,” John commented.  “I know you mean well, but when
you have a couple of kids who are your direct responsibility to protect, things
are a little less cut and dry.”

John walked back
to Kyle and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Kyle, I need you
in this,” John appealed to him. “We're about to get to Mars and who knows what
kind of crazy situations are in store for us.  The one thing I do know is
I'm going after Dominic.  I doubt he is just going to turn himself
over.  I'm going to need a few people to help make this happen and you're
one of them.  The captain doesn't want us going in guns ablaze.”

Pointing to the
neuroband on his head John made his point. “That doesn't leave much except for
this.”

A smile came back
across John's face as he patted Kyle's shoulder and said. “After all even the
Lone Ranger needed Tonto to get out of trouble once in a while.”

“I thought you
were going easy on the analogies,” Kyle joked, as a smile crept back out.

Caught up in their
conversation, the men were unaware a third person had just entered the room.

"You two
should exchange friendship bracelets next,” joked Lieutenant Glennay Mercedes
as she approached them. “You have more than one Kimosabe around here John,”
Glennay added as she gave him a small hug in greeting.

“Not to mention a
kindred spirit in obscure references,” Kyle said in jest.

John gave out a
slight chuckle.  He could count on Glennay deciphering his sayings nine
out of ten times.

“So what is this
about going in guns ablaze or not ablaze?” Glennay inquired.

“And just how much
of our chat have you accidentally overheard?” answered John with his own
question.

“Enough to know
you two are over your heads in trouble as usual,” she replied tossing a smirk
in Kyle's direction.

John leaned over
to his pack and retrieved two black rectangular cases from within. He handed
one to each of his comrades.

“As it would
happen, Ashley was planning on giving you the sales pitch later,” John told
Glennay. “I drew the short straw on talking to "Mr. Straight Shooter"
here.”

“So you're finally
bringing us up to full speed?” Glennay asked. “When do we begin?” she added
removing the neuroband from its case and slipping it on.

“You're pretty
easy,” Kyle said.  Seeing the look on Glennay's face he quickly added, “to
talk into using a neuroband, I mean.”

Glennay walked up
to Kyle with a slow purposeful stride.

Stopping within
arm's reach she said, “I think that tight jumpsuit you're wearing is turning
you into Mr. Cranky Pants. Don't you want to help out your best friend? Don't
you want to protect the fleet like the sentinel you're supposed to be?” Just as
Kyle was about to protest, Glennay gave him one last verbal swing. Grabbing a
flap of his jumpsuit, she slowly brought her face to his and whispered, “Sounds
like an 'easy' choice to me.” Letting go of his uniform, she slowly backed away
and turned to John.

“Okay kids play
nice,” John said diffusing any more comments.

Moving over to the
workstation in the fit room, John began to input settings using the
holo-controls.

“In fact,” John
added as he continued to program the simulation, “I know how you two can
resolve all that pent-up frustration.”

“What
frustration?” Kyle questioned. John continued rambling as if he hadn't heard
anything.

“In my new and
improved Octagon of Doom, I can show you the secrets of brainfu known only by
the masters!” he said enticingly.

Glennay's eyebrows
arched a bit as she gave John a look of sympathy.

“That poor woman
you're married to. Now I understand why she puts in all that lab time,” she
joked.

“My student
mistakenly taunts the master with impunity!” John replied in a shocked tone.
“For your insolence I will save a special lesson in humility for you. Do not
expect mercy even if you hold the ear of my other half.”

“Your better half,
you mean,” Glennay couldn't help but add one last quip.

“Oooo you make a
big mistake, young apprentice, you'll see,” John warned. “Into the Octagon you
two, I will punish you with my poetry.”

John shooed the
two newly acquired students into his simulation.

*

Chapter 22     You’ve Got Mail

“MARC Station,
this is the U.S.S. Columbus calling. Please reply with a status report,”
repeated an automated message from Ensign William's vidcomm. So many days had
passed since the fleet lost contact with Mars he almost ignored the green light
indicating a message had been received.

Startled, Ensign
Williams jumped back in his seat, hitting a beverage that would have flown
across the room had it not been secured. His thoughts raced in his head. “How
long had that light been blinking!” Noting the time stamp on the message,
it had been received only a minute or two ago. He gave an inward sigh and
turned toward the captain.

“Captain
Sterling,” he announced, “we have a secure message from the MARC Station.”

"The
heck with protocols," the captain thought to herself as
she ordered. “Put it on the main vidcomm.”

The screen came
alive, displaying the command center of the MARC station in orbit around Mars.
All workstations were manned save the empty hubs of several people hurrying
around the area.

Stepping into view
was a high ranking officer judging by the insignia on her MARC uniform. Her
blonde hair was neatly tucked under a standard issue hat worn by veteran
officers.  If the choice of hat had not given away her age, then the lines
of experience upon her face would have provided a clue. A living legend in her
own time, she was instantaneously recognizable.

“This is Admiral
Conrad of the Mars MARC Station,” related the commanding officer. “To any MARC
divisions receiving this message, we have been unable to send or receive
communications for several days.  It was determined that our station's
computer systems were compromised by the H.S. Argo.  The Argo arrived at
our station without the fleet, prior to its scheduled time, and under its own
power.  At the same time that our communication systems were shut down,
several ore carriers were launched from the station without authorization.
Security was able to override one transport's launch, however we have been
unable to override all the ship's protocols.”

The Admiral
shifted slightly in her stance and pointed toward the view screen as it changed
pictures.  Appearing on the screen was a tactical map of Mars superimposed
over the command center's image.  The map indicated the positions of the
seven founding dome cities, the MARC Station elevator, and a ship in stationary
orbit around Mars.

“After the Argo
left the MARC Station, our satellites tracked it to a stationary position above
Olympus Mons on Mars,” highlighted the Admiral. “The nearest dome city would be
New China. We did not receive this telemetry until after our communications
were restored.  The satellites that gave us this feed have since stopped
transmitting, but they gave us one important last bit of video.”

The picture
shifted to a full screen image of the H.S. Argo.  Its exterior bay doors
were open. From the opening, several large cables left the ship and plunged
toward the surface of Mars.

The Admiral
continued, “Our command team has concluded, based upon the ship's position in
orbit and the structure of the cables, they are deploying a space elevator.”
Several members of the Columbus' bridge crew let out a gasp.

The tactical
screen changed focus, highlighting the seven dome cities.

Admiral Conrad
detailed, “Reports confirm that New China and New India have yet to resume
communications with our station or any other dome city.” The tactical screen
overlay dropped.

Standing tall the
admiral announced. “As authorized by article one hundred twenty-seven of the
World Nations and regulation 34.16 of MARC Command, I am declaring a state of
emergency for the Colonies of Mars. To determine the intentions of the H.S.
Argo and in responding to the computer attack upon MARC Station, I formally
request assistance from MARC Control. Finally, transport of goods and resources
off-world has been suspended pending a resolution of this situation.”

The screen flashed
the MARC emblem before fading out.

One by one, the
crew regained their sense of the moment.  Eyes began to focus on Captain
Sterling, who had positioned herself near the center of the bridge.

“Ensign Williams,
open a message to the MARC station,” she directed.

Giving a wave the
ensign confirmed, “Message open, Captain.”

“MARC station,
this is Captain Sterling of the U.S.S. Columbus,” she started in greeting. “The
MARC fleet is currently operating under a state of emergency as well. This
situation is a direct result of actions taken from an unknown number of crew
aboard the H.S. Argo.  As a result, seven ships of the remaining fleet do
not have the sails required for deceleration.  We have since developed and
tested an alternate plan to remedy the situation.”

Looking in
Ashley's direction she continued, “Dr. Ashley Quinn and her team will send you
the calculations for our plan of action.  I'm requesting authorization to
implement this plan as unanimously approved by our fleet captains. I have the
utmost confidence in the architects of this plan and the crew of this fleet to
execute it flawlessly.”

Motioning to stop
the recording, Captain Sterling examined the faces of her crew.  The
trials they had endured had shaped them. The officers before her were not the
same people who began the trip. They were more than individuals of a crew, they
were turning into something greater.

“Ensign Williams,
at this distance, how long for a round trip message?” asked Captain Sterling.

“Five minutes,”
quickly replied the ensign.

Turning to Ashley
the captain directed, “Doctor, tie in your data with the message.”

Ashley moved
to Ensign William's workstation.  Entering her pass codes, she added her
calculations to the captain's message. When finished, she gave the captain a
thumbs up.

“Lick the envelope
and mail it, Ensign,” confirmed the captain.

Looking puzzled,
but grasping the gist, the ensign confirmed, “Aye, Captain.”

*

Chapter 23     Planar Geometry

The main vidcomm
of the bridge pictured each of the ships in the fleet.  Superimposed in
the middle of the screen was a peculiar looking outline.  It was as if the
ships formed eleven puzzle pieces. All eleven had been joined to form one
larger shape. Four of the pieces formed the corners of the outline. Their shape
was different from the rest of the pieces in that they were circular in form.
They had deployed their sails, tracing a circle around their midsection. The
rest of the ships were scarred, stripped of their beautiful circular manes.

“Ensign Williams,
do we have all the navigators on a separate Nav channel?” asked Captain Sterling.

The comm officer
answered, “Aye, Captain. The channel is formed and all navigators have reported
in.”

Ensign Simmons
nodded his head in confirmation.

“Put the Command
Channel on main audio,” directed the captain.

Ensign Williams
acknowledged the command and relayed it was active.

“The actions of
the H.S. Argo wounded our community,” the captain addressed the fleet. “Though
I am deeply upset by that betrayal, I am equally bolstered by the humanity that
has flourished. The instinct of self-preservation could have infected our
wounds.  Healthy ships could have guaranteed their own survival leaving
the wounded behind. Instead the able stay and tend to the wounded. We continue
the time honored tradition that no solider is left behind.”

Slowly walking
across the bridge she continued. “Your resilience in the face of such
challenges has given us a way to complete our journey to Mars. We shall arrive
at our destination in brotherhood, fulfilling the vision of the MARC program in
body and in spirit.”

Signaling Ensign
Williams to close the channel, the captain asked Ashley. “Are you ready, Dr.
Quinn?”

Ashley sat at a
workstation across from Navigator Simmons.  The workstation itself looked
as if it was in surgery with all the devices Ashley had plugged into it.

“Diagnostics has
confirmed all systems are integrated and on-line,” she replied.

Captain Anita
Sterling took one last glance at the vidcomm before giving the order, “Send the
signal, Ensign. It’s time to see our new home.”

The seconds that
followed felt like an eternity of waiting. The eerie silence was abruptly
broken, however, as four beams of plasma illuminated the screen.  Each
beam struck one of the sails of the four corner ships.

The U.S.S.
Columbus reeled from the impact of the plasma beam as if slamming into a
wave.  Ashley's fingers darted across her workstation as she tried to
manually adjust the sails' alignments.

Ensign Simmons
reported. “Energizers are at ninety-five percent capacity and rising.”

The ships of the
fleet used the polarity of their shields to stick together like a web. Each
ship reinforced the strength of the next as it spread the strain of the
deceleration across the fleet. Key were the four ships performing the actual
reduction in speed.  If any one of the four were out of synchronization
with the others, then the ships in the middle would tear through the magnetic
strands. They would continue on at a velocity exceeding Mars' ability to safely
trap them in orbit.

The main vidcomm
rotated the image ninety degrees horizontally, making the depth of the ships
readily apparent. The four corner ships were the furthest from Mars as they
continued to slow from the plasma beams. Stretching forward were the ships in
the middle. The inertia of the ships fought against the decelerating force of the
magnetic web.  Green, yellow, and red warning lines cut straight down the
screen in front of the ships. Any ship reaching the red line would break away
from the fleet and continue its journey.

The bulk of the
ships stretched no further than the middle of the yellow band. A countdown
timer in the bottom corner of the screen displayed the remaining required burn.

The captain knew
better than to distract Dr. Quinn with a request for an update.  Instead
she hovered near her workstation and looked for danger signs on her own.

“Captain, the
Panyu is reporting system-wide power failures!” reported Ensign Williams. “They
are ejecting their sail before their shields fail!”

Captain Sterling
checked with Dr. Quinn. “Ashley?”

“On it,” she
replied, yanking the picture of the fleet's configuration across her screen
into a triangle. “I need thirty seconds,” she stated, too busy to panic.

“Ensign, get me
their captain, main screen!” Captain Sterling briskly ordered.

Without wasting
time for an acknowledgment, the ensign changed the main vidcomm over to a live
image of the Panyu's bridge.  Random computer systems were sparking out
while the crew was admirably working to avoid a shutdown.

“Captain Tang, I
need your ship's energizers for...” pausing to look at Ashley's workstation,
Captain Sterling requested, “...I need them for twenty-four more seconds.”

The captain of the
Chinese ship caught the eye of Captain Sterling.  Looking around his
frayed bridge, he began barking orders to the crew. If possible, they moved
with an even greater sense of urgency.

“Split the
screen,” ordered Captain Sterling.

Ensign Williams
adjusted the vidcomm to show the bridge of the Panyu on one side and the fleet
tactical on the other. A second countdown timer appeared on the screen, ticking
off the seconds until the fleet was reconfigured.

Ashley cringed as
she began to tap a button labeled disconnect repeatedly.

“C’mon Admiral,”
she muttered to herself, “cut the beam.”

Five more seconds
passed before Ashley uttered, “Beam cut! Eject the sail!”

Like a rapid fire
pulse gun, a series of events fired in succession.

Captain Sterling
enabled fleet override and ejected the sail of the Panyu. Immediately, the ship
staggered from a change in positioning. The main vidcomm displayed each ship
shifting into a triangular pattern.  The magnetic web was now held
together at three ends by the three intact ships.  Relinquishing its
corner, the Panyu folded into the middle with the bulk of the fleet.

“Excellent work,
Captain!” Anita cheered to her fellow captain on the vidscreen.

The entire fleet
had surged farther into the yellow warning area with three ships in imminent
danger of crossing into the red.

“Captain,” Ashley
summoned the fleet commander. Pointing at her readout with her one free hand,
she cautioned. “I'm out of tricks here.  We're not going to make it.”

Anita Sterling
slammed her palm down on the workstation.

“We didn't come
all this way not to make it,” she said half to herself and half to the crew.
“Think, think, think.”

“Fleet channel
on!” she fired off without wasting the time to turn around.

The left side of
the screen changed from the Panyu to fleet view indicating an open channel.

“All captains,
fire your maneuvering thrusters to decelerate on my command!” she snapped off
an order with all haste. Anita paused just long enough for the crews to react.

“In three, two,
one, fire thrusters!” she ordered.

The main vidcomm
continued to show the fleet closing dangerously upon the red line. One, two,
then three ships crossed into the red.  With only a few thousand meters to
spare, the countdown timer expired.  The fleet had decelerated to orbital
speed.

The bridge broke
into cheers, echoed by the sounds of joy across ten other ships. Several crew
members shook hands, gave hugs, or exchanged smiles.

In the midst of it
all, Ashley and Anita managed to sneak in a barely audible conversation.

“That was like
stopping a runaway ship with a cargo fan,” Ashley beamed. “How in the world did
you think that would work?”

“Every bit helps
my dear, every bit helps,” the captain joked as days of stress seemed to pour
out of her being.

*

Chapter 24     The Spider and
the Fly

Four spider pods
were ready to be inaugurated.  Their namesake would be proud of the
strands of cable that spun from the Argo to the surface of the planet.
Much like strands from a web, their delicate appearance gave little
indication of their strength. In fact the pods could be safely loaded with
several hundred tons of weight.

Unlike a spider,
however, the pods did not climb up and down their cable.   Miniature
plasma beams, cousins to those used for space travel, pushed the pods. They
could quickly accelerate or decelerate the pod many times faster than by
traction alone.  A trip either up or down on the MARC station could take
several hours.  With the use of specially designed suits, however,
passengers inside the spiders could travel at speeds rivaling old-fashioned
rockets.

Though Dominic's
focus should have been on this event, he was laboring to finish up a private
project.

“Dr. Andreou,”
called Captain Dranius over the vidcomm. “We have received confirmation that
Dr. Stanton's party is ready to begin their journey to the Argo.”

“Not now!” Dominic
muttered under his breath. “I’m not ready yet.”

Moving to the
vidcomm he spoke, “Captain, send the pods down. Send them down at payload
speed.”

“Doctor,” the
captain said with a hint of question in his voice, “payload speed?  That
will take several hours for transit. Did I hear you correctly?”

“Payload speed!”
Dominic ordered, “and if you wish to avoid testing a new re-entry technique I
suggest you obey my orders without question.”

“Payload speed,”
the captain reiterated. “By the Order.”

Dominic wanted to
storm the bridge and teach the captain a lesson in discipline, but he did not
have time. The minute the high philosopher arrived, his research would need to
be stowed away.

Returning to the
matter at hand, he reset the trial settings on his workstation for another
attempt. In the last few days, the lab itself had been re-arranged for the
express purpose of testing his neuroband.  An eerie similarity between his
lab on the Argo and “her” lab was apparent. Status monitors for brainwaves
stood next to computer assisted cognitive devices.

Donning his latest
neuroband, Dominic prepared for the next test. Across the room sat a
technician, formerly assigned to the engineering station. Now that the Argo was
safely hovering above Mars, several more techs were now considered
non-essential personnel.

“I understand
you're a man of science,” Dominic greeted the technician. “In that case, you
shouldn't mind helping me test out a theory or two.”

#

Dr.
Elizabeth Stanton peered up into the sky, her vision obscured by the sun's
light. Pushing her auburn hair aside, she shaded her face from the bright rays.
Her eyes squinted in an attempt to spy the cables ascent into space. They
passed hundreds of feet into the air before wisps of clouds obscured their
passage to the Argo.

Her attention was
drawn by a spray of ocean water upon her face. Waves crashed upon the sides of
the giant flotilla, occasionally casting themselves across the deck.
Rather than peer into the sky she closely examined the cables at the base. They
were lashed to the flotilla with great clasps.  As they swayed in the
afternoon breeze, the flotilla swayed with them, diffusing the energy that
would have ripped them from land.

A small group of
heavily armed soldiers patrolled the deck.  They were the elite guard of
the high philosopher or O-Sophia. Those in the Order addressed her as O-Sophia,
meaning great wisdom. Those outside the Order, referred to her by another name,
Dr. Elizabeth Stanton. Armed with pulse rifles and wearing military grade
armor, their presence created an eerie zone of silence. Seagulls that nested at
the deck instead gave a wide birth to the humans.  Martian crickets, whose
sounds could deafen the foolish traveler, stood in silence. Even the wildlife
of the plains seemed to avoid the guard on instinct.

“O-Sophia,” called
one of the guards as he bowed, “the Argo has sent a lift down from orbit.
Captain Dranius reports that it will take several hours before it arrives.”

“Hours?” she asked
rhetorically.

“That is
unexpected,” she stated. “Did they explain the delay?”

“They are sending
down fragile equipment,” answered the soldier. “Dr. Andreou did not wish to
risk a faster descent.”

Elizabeth nodded
then turned toward the ocean. The ocean breeze bunched the folds of her white
dress allowing a modest glimpse of the woman beneath. Though years of laboring
in the sun had given her a deep tan, her regenerative genetics nurtured her
beauty.   She strolled slowly along the perimeter of the flotilla as
she pondered.  She had known Dominic for nearly twenty years now.  He
habitually followed the beat of a different drum. An ordinary philosopher
wouldn't have dreamed of keeping her waiting for hours.  That lack of
wisdom had resulted in a quick departure from her graces.  His genius,
however, made him an invaluable member of the Order. Times like these tested
how invaluable.

“Why would you
risk offending me?” she asked herself.

Elizabeth turned
back toward the center of the flotilla.  She walked with a purpose back to
the soldier.

“Archon,” she
addressed the man, “bring me your best scout and make sure he has his
exploration pack with him.”

The soldier asked
for her permission in this case to leave. “By the Order.” He bowed and then
left. The archon hurried across the ramp connecting the flotilla to the
mainland.  On a pace seemingly beyond his heavy encumbrance, the soldier
gracefully bounded several supply crates in his way.  Reaching a camp, he
summoned several men to his side. One of those men quickly left the group and
grabbed a pack.  Securing his gear, the scout returned to the archon. Both
men then quickly returned to the high philosopher.

Winded but not
exhausted, the archon bowed and spoke, “O-Sophia this is our finest scout,
Ezio.”

Bowing deeply, the
soldier stood to the side and slightly behind the archon.

“Come forward,” she
commanded.

Ezio quickly
stepped to the high philosopher and knelt on one knee.

Motioning the man
to stand, she questioned him. “You have your surveyor with you, do you not?”

“I have it
O-Sophia,” the soldier replied.

“Remove it from
your pack and ready it,” she directed. “I have a question it will answer.”

The soldier opened
his pack and from one of the compartments removed a black metallic object
shaped like a saucer.  He set it down upon the ground before removing a
Ksync from his belt.  Ezio adjusted several settings on the small
vidscreen of the device, making sure the saucer's systems were ready.

Confident in the
machine's functionality, he informed the high philosopher, “O-Sophia, the
surveyor is ready.”

Taking a step to
the saucer, Elizabeth bent down and picked it up.

“It's been some
time since we've met,” she spoke to the saucer.

“You may go Ezio,”
the high philosopher said with a smile. “I am old friends with this machine.”

The soldier bowed
and handed her his Ksync. He left his pack as well before heading back to
shore.

Years ago when the
domes were constructed, the Martian landscape was surveyed first by
machines.  They located the ideal settings for the dome cities.
There were several qualifications such as tectonic stability and resource availability
that were scouted by these machines.  Operated by remote, they were
designed to traverse a world without an atmosphere and under extreme
conditions.   Elizabeth had discovered them early in her arrival on
Mars.  Long discarded, she had recovered and revived them for use by the
military as unmanned scouts.

She did not,
however, foresee using one to spy on her own people.

The archon looked
at her with a puzzled stare.

“You may be
unaware,” the high philosopher informed him, “these amazing drones were a
discovery of mine some time ago. It has been years since I've piloted one, but
I'm sure it will come back to me.”

“Completely
unaware,” replied the archon, “though it doesn't surprise me, Elizabeth.”

The change in
formality did not phase her.  Indeed she was quite experienced with his
shortcomings in protocol. The brashness reminded Elizabeth of her past, of a
missed past.

Scanning the area,
she remarked, “Adonis, one of these times your sixth sense is going to fail
you, and someone is going to overhear your insolence.”

“Would it be so
horrible to accept your general's love publicly,” he said in a low voice.

“My general is
going to have to hold his tongue for a while longer,” she replied.  “We
have far too many irons in the fire now to risk adding fuel to the flames.”

He took a step
closer to her and said even lower, “I thought you didn't mind the heat.”

Elizabeth tossed
the saucer to her archon, forcing him to change his train of thought and catch
the device. Then quickly manipulating the controls on the Ksync, she fired off
a quick jet from the saucer.

“Watch out” the
man said leaping back as the saucer flew across the platform.  It
continued out across the water and then up into the sky.

Her attention
focused on the Ksync, Elizabeth managed to get out. “I can stand the heat, but
it looks like you're likely to get burned.”

Taken aback at
first, he smirked at her brand of humor.

“You are the sun
my love,” he said in low tones as he bowed. “I can only stare.”

The surveyor shot
up into the sky using the cables as a guide. When the proximity warning light
flashed on the Ksync, Elizabeth slowed the probe's ascent. The visual from the
machine showed the pods as they made their slow descent to the planet.
She maneuvered the probe to view the interior of the pods, one at a time.

“There's nothing
inside that would excuse this delay!” she uttered in astonishment. Signaling
the probe to return, Elizabeth tossed Adonis the controller.  Then
reaching through a fold in her robes, she withdrew her own Ksync.

Activating the
device she called. “Captain Dranius, your attention.”

The surprised
voice of the captain replied. “O-Sophia, you grace me by your call.”

Cracking a smile
she continued, “Captain, save me your pleasantries and your excuses.  I
expect a pod in the next twenty minutes on the ground. And, Captain, don't keep
me waiting, my patience right now is very fragile.”

“By the Order,” he
replied, using as confident a voice as possible.

Chapter 25     Welcome Home

One by one the
ships of the MARC fleet maneuvered into docking position with the MARC station.
The U.S.S. Columbus watched over each ship with its motherly eye. With
the tenth ship safely docked, Captain Sterling gave the order for the U.S.S.
Columbus to complete its journey. Over half of the station's bays were now
filled around its circular exterior.

As each ship’s
crew was cleared by decontamination, they were welcomed by representatives of
their corresponding dome city. The process of moving each families’ belongings
to the surface of Mars then commenced.  Once planet-side the families
would take a high speed journey by train to a temporary site.  After a
month of training they would set out to tame the wilds of Mars and become the
settlers they were meant to be.

At long last, the
crew of the U.S.S. Columbus had been granted permission to enter the station.
They were lined up and grouped by family in the loading bay.

“Captain Sterling,
it is my pleasure to welcome you and your crew aboard,” greeted Admiral Conrad
accompanied by a small group of officers.

Saluting first,
the captain then replied, “It is an honor to meet you, Admiral Conrad.”

The admiral
returned her salute and added. “I had hoped to offer your fleet a more suitable
welcome after such a long journey, but as you know we've been a bit busy.
I'm sure you won't mind abbreviating this ceremony and getting to the business
at hand.”

“Not at all,
Admiral,” Captain Sterling agreed. “We have a seemingly endless number of items
to address.”

Admiral Conrad
walked briskly through the ranks of the Columbus, shaking hands and exchanging
salutes.  One little person in the mix grabbed her attention.

“And who do we
have here?” asked the Admiral.

Looking up at the
tall officer, Jessica gave a big smile and replied, “Jessica Quinn on duty!”
Glancing from side to side she added. “With my father, my mother ...oh and
Wispy too!”  The girl's hovering sidekick bounced at bit by her side.

The admiral
returned her smile and knelt down in front of the girl.

“Well, I couldn't
bring the big band to play, Jessica, but I can offer you a welcoming gift,”
joked the admiral.  Reaching to her collar, she lifted a necklace of
shimmering stones from underneath. Unclasping the necklace, the admiral
stretched the string around Jessica's neck.  She re-clasped it and gave
her another smile as she stood back up.

“Those are heart
stones from the mines of New China,” she explained.  They shimmer red only
for those who are kind of heart.  I can tell by looking, that you are
worthy to wear them." The lights of the station danced among the stones as
Jessica jiggled her new necklace.  The girl gave the admiral a surprise
hug in return.

Turning her
attention to Jessica's parents, the admiral addressed them as well. “I take it
this young lady belongs to you.”

Ashley rubbed
Jessica's head as she pulled her back from the admiral.

John saluted and
replied. “Sentinel Commander Quinn and Dr. Ashley Quinn, Admiral.”

The admiral
returned the salute.

“The most precious
gem of all,” she complimented them. “I understand Dr. Quinn that many people
here owe you a debt of gratitude for your miracle working.”

“I have an
exceptional team,” Ashley replied.

"Mars will
put them to the test," challenged the admiral, "but they've overcome
quite a bit to get here. Keep it up and I'll know where to find my
replacement,” the admiral complimented her. Admiral Conrad parted ways,
resuming her way down the line of families.

#

“Your request for
a warrant is granted,” Admiral Conrad informed the small group in her office. “There's
one large problem, however, I don't think you can serve it anytime soon.”

Captain Sterling
replied, “I beg your pardon, Admiral, but I thought you had military
jurisdiction on Mars.”

The Admiral
nodded. “It's not a problem with jurisdiction, Captain. It's a problem with
transportation.”

The faces of the
captain, Commander Quinn, Lieutenant Jennings, and Dr. Quinn were more than
mildly perplexed.

“You see,
Captain,” the admiral explained, “we’re still unable to communicate with New
China or New India since the Argo passed by. Moreover, the high speed trains to
both cities have ceased as their plasma stations have malfunctioned.  I
have a tech crew working on it from our end, but that doesn't seem to be
accomplishing much.  The problem seems to be on their end.”

“So what's the
best route to New China on foot?” requested the commander in an unusually
serious tone.

“Well you'd better
pack some amazingly comfortable boots, Commander, because that would take you
months,” the admiral related to him.

“I've sent in two
different teams by air,” she explained. “Neither one has reported back. One
disappearance could be a result of this planet's crazy weather, but two... I'm
not betting on chance. Somebody or something is cutting us off from the area.”

“What are your
satellites or probes showing?” Commander Quinn asked clearly frustrated by the
unexpected challenges.

“Our satellites,
haven't come back online,” the admiral answered. “Our tech team is preparing to
launch replacements, but if you've missed it, Commander, we've been a bit busy.
As to probes, well that's the other piece that doesn't seem coincidental.
Months ago, New China requisitioned every probe that wasn't tied down for some
sort of research project.”

“How does that
happen?” Jonathon questioned, his frustrations continuing to build.

Sensing the
commander's strife, Captain Sterling interjected, “What do you recommend,
Admiral?”

Moving to a
circular table in her office, the admiral pulled up a holographic map of Mars.

“Take the train to
New America as planned,” she began to outline, “and stock up with supplies as
though you are going to colonize outside the dome. Highlighting New America,
the Admiral traced a trail along the non-functional track to New China.”

Instead of looking
for a place to settle, you'll of course be following the existing track to New
China by ground car,” she explained. “If we establish contact with New China or
I get eyes in the sky, then I'll personally make sure you get the intel. Check
your Ksyncs early and often.”

“Commander,” the
admiral stressed with concern, “you'll receive a standard briefing in New
America about traveling outside the domes.  Since you'll be travelling
beyond them, I need to make sure you get the uncensored version. This is a new
planet.  By new, I mean volatile.  In under a century, this planet
has gone from a Martian dust bowl to a living breathing organism.  I have
reports on my desk filled with every kind of crazy hazard you can
imagine.  We have landforms still in flux, volcanic activity, rainstorms that
will strip your armor, and that's just the beginning. Make sure you don't
discount your wildlife briefing either, they aren't making it up.”

The group stood
silent for a moment, trying to process everything they had heard.

“I'm not sure this
was on the travel brochure,” joked Lieutenant Jennings in an attempt to break
the tension.

“Indeed
Lieutenant,” the admiral agreed. “You're going to find a lot of what was
advertised at MARC Control doesn't match up with reality.”

“We have our work
cut out for us then,” Captain Sterling acknowledged. “Let's get the crew moving
planet-side.”

“Captain, I was
thinking the same thing,” the admiral agreed. “I need to borrow your think tank
here for a short task. The security protocols on an ore carrier are still
broken. I was hoping that a doctor and her exceptional team would be just what
the admiral ordered.”

The remainder of
the group exited the admiral's office while Ashley remained.

“I have a few
elves that are good at helping me work my magic, Admiral,” Ashley related to
her. “If I could page Lieutenant Mercedes from the Columbus and Sub Lieutenant
Anderson from the Melbourne, they will speed this up.”

“By all means,
Doctor,” the admiral encouraged her. “Anything you need to work your magic.”

Chapter 26    Rock Bottom Epiphany

For the first time
since the launch of the colonial ships, the students of the MARC Academy
gathered in person within the space station's bay. They were charged with
assisting the station crew to unload the MARC ships. To accomplish such a task,
several of the students were crash trained in the operation of hover loaders.
The loaders looked like old fashioned motorcycles with fixed air jets under
them instead of wheels. Attached to the front of the loaders were robotic arms
which could expand or contract as needed to carry cargo.  The hover
loaders were nimble for their size, allowing them to maneuver the maze of cargo
stored in the loading bay with ease.

When they were
satisfied that the recruits could perform the job, most of the bay’s crew were
reassigned. The vast majority of regular station workers had transferred over
to the sister bay.  They were working voraciously at loading the pods
travelling down to Mars.  The majority of the unloading now fell to the
academy recruits.

Having worked for
two hours straight, the students were taking an impromptu break in one of the
few open areas of the cargo stacks.  Stephanie pulled her hover loader up
parallel to Kevin’s while four other students parked in a mismatch.

“Hey Kevin,”
yelled one of the academy students as he shut down his hover loader. “You and
your girlfriend need to stop making out and get to work.  I want some time
to check out the station club, not spending all day moving boxes.”

“Were you hanging
your head out the porthole on the trip, Ryan,” Kevin replied. “You’ve loaded
nowhere near the crates that Steph and I have.”

Ryan smirked
appreciatively at his classmate’s ability to make a comeback.

“You’re starting
to sass like your girl there, Kev,” Ryan tried again to get a reaction from
him. “Maybe she’ll make a man out of you yet.”

Stephanie couldn’t
bite her tongue any longer. “If your ego wasn’t taking up half your cranium,
maybe you’d have enough smarts to have a girlfriend too.”

Par for the
course, Stephanie had a unique ability to punch hard with her words.
Kevin had seen her ability to find an Achilles' heel with her tongue lashings
on numerous occasions.

Ryan climbed off
his hover loader and stood up straight as he walked over to them. Still
sitting, Ryan towered over them like a giant.  No one had to guess why he
was nicknamed “brick wall” during fit matches. If it wasn’t for Stephanie’s
father refereeing, one of them would have likely spent some time in the med
center from a match by now.

“You know, Kevin.
I’m going to have to find a way to shut your woman’s mouth,” Ryan threatened
standing by Kevin, but staring at Stephanie. “If it wasn't for her father, I’d
tie that vicious tongue of hers in a knot myself. Without that option, it looks
like I’ll just have to make my point with you and trust she gets it.”

Kevin quickly
stood up to defend himself as Stephanie searched for way out of the mess.

“Can’t take a
little heat, can you tough guy?” Stephanie began to lay her trap. “Can you
stand a little competition? You’re so worried about getting to the club to meet
all those ladies, but you’re wasting time right now.”

“You hoping I
break his nose an extra time or two?” Ryan asked. “You’re not going to talk
your way out of this.”

“So you don’t want
to leave now and go to the club while we finish this up?” Stephanie cut in
quickly.

“What are you
talking about?” Ryan replied his interest momentarily piqued.

Stephanie pointed
toward two stacks of crates needing to be stored.

“You and your
three amigos here get the stack on the left, Kevin and I get the one on the
right,” she began to explain. “If you park those crates before us, then you get
the rest of the day off. Of course if we somehow manage to beat you four
knuckleheads, then we go on a date while you finish our work.”

Ryan pondered her
challenge for a second. Stephanie was hands down the best pilot around.
She could likely park twice the crates that he could. Now Kevin on the other
hand was an alright pilot, but nothing like her.  There’s no way two
loaders could work faster than the four of them.

“Alright, you
managed to buy some extra life insurance,” Ryan stated as he turned his gaze to
Kevin. “You know, I’d much rather cruise the dance floor than hang out in this
hole.  Let’s get this over with so I can show the ladies some of the new
moves from Earth.” Ryan showed off a quick dance move as he made his way back
to his hover loader.

Kevin shook his
head and looked over at Stephanie. “Sometimes I wonder what kind of magic
carpet ride you’re taking us on.”

“You love it,” she
smiled and shot back, “you can’t deny it.”

The six hover
loaders flew next to their cargo stacks, two on one stack and four on the
other.  The riders looked at their Ksyncs as the seconds clicked off to
start the race.  With the simulated sound of a starter’s pistol, both
groups raced their loaders to the crates.  Stephanie and Kevin quickly
grabbed a crate and headed off to the destination showing on the loader’s
screen.  The four boys had a volatile start, two of them almost crashing
into each other while trying to secure a crate.

“C’mon you
boneheads, don’t screw it up and we win!” Ryan yelled at his team.

The engines from
the loaders screamed throughout the station’s cargo hold. The loaders flew
tight circles around and over the stacks of cargo.  Several times, there
had been close calls. One time Kevin almost crashed into a support beam.
Another time one of Ryan’s team had nearly broadsided his hover loader. All of
the recruits were well trained, however, and though their speed added a level
of difficulty, maneuvering the loaders was quite easy compared to their academy
flight runs.

The problem for
Stephanie and Kevin was mathematical in nature. If it was two on two, then they
would be setting a winning pace. This was four on two.  The numbers
weren’t adding up in their favor, and Stephanie knew it.

When she made the
bet, however, Stephanie was gambling on an ace card.  At the time, she
didn’t know how she was going to use her neuroband to get ahead.  That was
until she flew by a shelf full of giant packing wrap. Waiting for the right
flight path, she saw Ryan racing right toward the open crates with a crate of
his own.  Flying on an intercept course toward him, she pictured the
entire line of crates falling right on top of Nick and then threw the image in
his direction.  Her plan worked brilliantly as his hover loader took a
sharp turn downwards, crashing right into the stack of cushioned packing
materials.

She didn’t have
time to gloat, however, as she had to switch her concentration back to
flying.  In the transition, she didn’t see another hover loader streaking
into her flight path.

Stephanie screamed
as her loader hit the broad side of the hover craft.  The impact of the
crash sent her loader spinning out of control while the other craft fell out of
sight. Pouring all her skill into the loader’s controls, she managed to keep it
from smashing into the bay’s wall. As she regained her senses, Stephanie threw
the loader’s throttle to full speed and raced toward the crash site.

She spotted the
wrecked loader hanging part way out of a smashed crate.  Landing at record
pace, she jumped off her loader and ran to the accident scene.  Looking at
the wreckage, her worst fears were realized as she recognized Kevin’s shoes
hanging at an awkward angle over his loader.  She jumped over a chunk of
broken metal to reach the other side of the craft. Seeing Kevin, Stephanie fell
down in tears.  Somehow keeping her senses, she ripped the Ksync off her
belt and found the station’s emergency channel.  As she spoke to the
medical tech on the line, some of her fellow students landed nearby and rushed
to aid them.

#

Surgery had made
amazing progress since the days of her great-grandfather. No longer did doctors
work with scalpels in their hands. Miniature robots now performed even the most
difficult procedures. Moving in ways physically impossible for hands, robots
helped develop a long list of medical advancements in the operating room. In
the early years, human doctors guided their mechanical aids by remote.  In
time, new techniques demanded the reaction time that could only be provided by
a computer. Now, virtually all surgeries were automated routines performed
between a computer program and its robotic companion.

Stephanie looked
through the clear walls of the operating room.  Kevin was being prepped
for surgery.  He lay unconscious on the white table.  The doctor was
checking the routines on the robotic machine that would perform surgery on
Kevin.  Stephanie was reminded of Wispy when she looked at the device though
it was perhaps a flattened version.

When everything
checked out, the doctor positioned an outdated robotic machine in a standby
position.  She then placed surgical contacts in her eyes. They would allow
her to see the same three dimensional pictures that the computer saw.  The
procedure was a holdover from the past. Older patients were too paranoid to
allow computers to perform unguided surgery.  As a compromise doctors were
required to stand by. They were ready in a moment’s notice to take over a
procedure should something go wrong. The MARC station apparently hadn't caught
up with the times.

The lights
customarily dimmed right before beginning.  Stephanie couldn’t bear to
look around the empty observation room she stood in. Kevin’s brother Kyle had
been paged, but he had not responded. In her family, only her step-mother
replied. Ashley was in the middle of some project she was trying to get out of,
but couldn't say when that would be.  She was there, by herself, with an
unbearable weight pulling her down like a sinking ship. Several unthinkable
thoughts ran through her mind… of how she could stop the pain she felt. But
there was Kevin, on that table, truly alone.  She had to stay.  He
was there because of her.

Stephanie knew the
surgery had begun when she saw the robot slowly circling Kevin.  The
doctor was more attentive now, watching the procedure from her own viewpoint.
In a few minutes the surgery would be over. The seconds of waiting were
endless. She couldn't imagine a more horrible feeling.

Without warning
the ground underneath her feet seemed to buckle as the walls shook.  She
grabbed onto a rail, keeping herself from falling.  Looking through the
observation window, she could see that the doctor had remained upright by
grabbing the robotic station beside her. Stephanie’s heart pounded as she
looked at Kevin. At least he remained stationary on the table.  The
robotic doctor continued along, unfazed by the phenomenon.

An alarm sounded
in the waiting room outside. Three med assistants rushed into the surgical room
from a side area.  The doctor waved them off, halting the procedure.
Stephanie couldn’t hear the doctor’s instructions to initialize the backup
systems. Moments later a second shock hit the room, this one far worse than the
first. It knocked Stephanie clear off her feet.  She heard a loud noise,
an explosion.  The vibrations reverberated through the room, but Stephanie
thought it came from overhead.  Using her hands to feel her way, Stephanie
made it to the observation window which was her only source of light.
Through the window, she saw her second traumatic event of the day.  The
doctor was laying on the floor, blood streaking down the side of her head.
Trying to help her was one of the assistants.  The other two assistants
were on the floor across the room lying motionless.  Looking around the
room she saw Kevin, he remained on the bed.  What she saw next crushed her
hopes.  The small robotic surgeon was strewn across the room, smashed into
pieces by a large metal beam.  It had crashed from the ceiling narrowing
missing Kevin and striking the robot dead center.

*

Chapter 27     Crackerjack
Surprise

Three scientists
were dissecting the ore carrier's workstation as though it was a mad science
experiment. The huge reinforced doors leading to the carrier's bay had remained
closed since the arrival of the Argo. The workstation housed the main controls
for the entry point. Several compartments were torn apart, wiring strung from
side to side.  A host of Ksyncs were patched in to the workstation at all
points. The idea that it was in better shape now than a few hours earlier would
have seemed ludicrous to the average MARC colonist. To Ashley, Glennay, and
Tyler, ripping apart workstations was like breathing.

“I'm thinking
we're the modern day equivalent of blacksmiths,” Tyler added to their ongoing
conversation. “I mean, in the outback we wouldn't be shoeing horses these days,
but fixing broken down Ksyncs and ground cars.”

Glennay shook her
head and countered, “Not I. You won't find me out there skipping along with any
kangaroos.  I'm going to bring civilization to this red rock, starting
with a high tech spa.”

Ashley couldn't
help herself and let out a laugh.  Glennay shot her an evil glance.

“Don't disrespect
my spa before you see it,” she stated with authority. “Where do you think all
these tired settlers are going flock to after a hard day of playing cowboy?”

“To the pub if
they have any common sense,” Tyler chimed in.

Glennay tossed a
broken Ksync at Tyler.

“Hey, what's the
bloody idea?” Tyler shot back halfheartedly.

“Careful Tyler,”
Ashley said, stirring the pot, “a cute Aussie accent won't get you out of
trouble with this one. You should see the bruises Kyle has from their last
training day.”

“Sounds like that
mate could use a few jujitsu lessons,” Tyler replied. “Look at her, she's
nearly skin and bones.”

Glennay stopped
and gave her best walk over to the technician.

“That mate, was a
lieutenant in the sentinels,” Ashley chimed in before Glennay could get a word
in. “I'd hate to see what would happen to a tech head.”

Glennay looked
over at Ashley and back to Tyler before agreeing. “Like she said…” Satisfied
with the situation, Glennay returned to her repair work.

“Hold up a
second,” Ashley lobbied as she crawled out from under the workstation. “I’m
getting a page on my Ksync.”

After seeing the
message she encouraged the group. “Stephanie needs me gang.  We need to
hurry this up or I’m going to have to let you two work together, alone.”

“That’s some
inspiration,” Tyler whispered under his breath.

Several minutes
later, Ashley let out a groan as she spun around the workstation.

“I'm patched in to
both the bay systems and the carrier, but I'll be darned if I can get a single
command to register,” she said clearly frustrated.

“You tried his
backdoor code, I'm assuming?” Glennay questioned Ashley.

“He must have
chosen a different one, or that was specific to the Argo. Either way, it didn't
work,” Ashley replied.

A warning light
began to flash on an unoccupied part of the workstation.

“What did you do
there?” Tyler questioned Ashley.

“I'm not tied into
that at all,” she responded.

“Me either,” added
Glennay.

The three of them
converged on the offending part of the workstation.

Pulling up the
schematics for that section of the workstation, Ashley looked for the source of
the warning signal. With a look of horror on her face, she gasped and took a
step back.

“No, not again!”
she cried.

The other two
looked closer at the screen.  A technical layout of the ore carrier was
dead center in the screen. The main thrusters of the vessel were partially
covered by an overlay of a countdown timer. It was counting down from five
minutes.

Glennay tried to
snap Ashley out of it. “C’mon Ashley, five minutes, we need a solution fast.”

“I've tried
everything, he changed the code, I can't get through,” Ashley recounted her
attempts out loud.  Her voice was different than usual. There was a hint
of doubt in it, something Glennay wasn't used to hearing.

“OK,” Glennay
moved over to the workstation, “I'm sure there's something we haven’t tried.”

Tyler took one
look at Ashley, then another at Glennay.

“I keep trying to
tell you Americans, you can't bloody well keep doing the same thing over and
over again and think something new will happen,” Tyler said, as though he was
scolding a misbehaving student.

He moved around
the workstation, ripping off Ksyncs one by one from their connection.
Glennay shot him a look of dismay as he had gathered all the devices and dumped
them on the center table of the workstation.

“Sometimes you
just have to throw out the junk and start over,” he added as the Ksyncs banged
down on the table.

Pulling a Ksync
off of his belt, he handed it to Glennay.

“Be a sheila and
string those together,” Tyler directed Glennay as he motioned toward the
Ksyncs.

Glennay was in a
daze. She completely missed his slang, but managed to grasp his request.

As she did, Tyler
pointed a Ksync toward the terminal connection of the workstation.

“What are you…?”
Glennay tried to utter a question, but before she could finish Tyler had
activated his Ksync.

“Fire shock
pulse!” Tyler gave a command to the device.  The short hum seemed to rise
in intensity as the device gathered all its energy. Then with a loud blast, it
fired an electrostatic blast ripping the casing off of the terminal
connection.  With the cables exposed, he reached into the box and yanked a
stretch of the cable. He fed it to Glennay. With the workstation's connection
lost, the security lock on the door reset.

“It shouldn't take
much to hook these up now, don't you think?” Tyler asked rhetorically.

Ashley was
literally jolted out of her state of shock with the Ksync's pulse.

“We've no way to
tell how much time is left,” Ashley commented, “just go fast.”

Tyler and Glennay
worked together to establish a connection between the make-shift workstation
and the network.

“That should do
it,” Tyler said proudly. “Have at it.”

Ashley jumped to
the lead Ksync in the series.

“That got us past
the door,” Ashley announced, “but I still can't shut down the thrusters.
The override is blocked from the carrier's systems now.”

Glennay shot out
an idea. “Can you fire the thrusters?”

Ashley looked
confused but answered, “Yes.”

“Undock that ship
and get it out of here then!” Glennay followed up.

“Of course!”
Ashley concurred.

Large red lights
flashed, and an alarm clanked on the corridor walls and inside the bay.

A computerized
voice indicated, “Warning, emergency launch procedures initiated.”

Looking through
the reinforced window view of the bay, the three watched as the docking clamps
retracted from the ore carrier. Immediately following the retraction, the
thrusters fired at full power. The vibrations rocked the exterior of the
station like a minor tremor. The ore carrier proceeded in the direction of its
launch point.

Trevor checked his
Ksync. “It should be any time...” but before the words came out of his mouth,
the transport's thrusters exploded.  Large pieces of the transport smashed
into the MARC station, however, the docking clamps holding the U.S.S. Columbus
had taken the brunt of the force.  The carrier was passing the Columbus,
and it had shielded the station from certain breach.   The flagship
of the MARC fleet, however, had been blasted out of its mooring.

Alarms and klaxons
echoed down the corridor halls from all directions.

“Are there still
people aboard the Columbus?” Glennay shouted above the noise.

“I don't know,”
Ashley shouted back.

Instinctively, the
three of them turned and ran down the corridor. As they started, a second
explosion rocked the station from above.  The vibrations shook them off
their feet and threw them around the corridor like rag dolls.

Picking themselves
up they checked each other for injury.

“Where's John?”
Glennay yelled to Ashley.

Pointing to the station's
elevator she replied, “Getting ready to go down.”

“Go find your
family,” Glennay told her. “We'll check on the Columbus.”

Ashley nodded as
the scientists split up in different directions.

#

Stephanie stood
mesmerized at the scene before her.  She couldn’t just stand there and
watch Kevin die.  Reaching over to the doorway, she hit the emergency
access panel.  The entrance slid open, and she rushed through.

“What are you
doing?” yelled the med assistant at Stephanie. “You can’t be in here. This is a
sterile environment.”

“My boyfriend is
dying on that table over there,” she yelled back. “You can’t let that happen.
What’s wrong with the doctor?”

“My eyes,” the
doctor moaned. “I can’t see anything.”

“Her imaging
contacts fused to her eyes with the power spike,” the tech added. “She needs
medical attention.”

“But what about
Kevin?” Stephanie countered, breathing heavily now.

“If we can page
Doctor Walter, then your friend might have a chance,” replied the med
assistant.

“Can’t you do
something?” Stephanie frantically asked the assistant.

“I can set up the
stand-by robot, but the doctor is the only one who can do the surgery,” replied
the med assistant.

“I’m so sorry,”
added the doctor.  “She’s right.  It’s difficult to maneuver the
controls.   I wish I could talk her through it, but I have to see it
with my own eyes.”

“See it,” muttered
Stephanie. “See it.”

Mustering every
ounce of courage Stephanie commanded the assistant. “Get her up. Get her up
now. She is going to see.”

Thinking the girl
had lost her senses the med assistant shook her head and replied “Hun you can’t
fix this. There’s no way either of us are going to help the doctor see right
now.”

Stephanie gave the
assistant a hard stare and spoke in a commanding voice, “Stand her up now. Get
the robot ready”

The assistant
repeated half of what Stephanie said as a glassy stare replaced her animated
refusal. As Stephanie gave the command, a shooting pain rippled through her
mind. It was though her brain had retaliated against her neuroband.  The
pain cleared quickly, but it wasn’t something she wished to experience again.
The tech bent down and worked to help the doctor stand.

The stand-by robot
was powered up. Next to it, the doctor was standing. She was too confused to
question what was happening. Stephanie reached into the same container she had
seen the doctor use earlier.  Pulling out two contact lenses she struggled
to place them in her eyes.

“I don’t know what
you think you’re doing,” said the med assistant more like herself, “but here,
let me help you. Look up.”

The med assistant
moved over to Stephanie and helped her insert the contact lenses into her eyes.

“Turn that thing
on so I can see,” Stephanie directed.

The med assistant
activated the robotic device.  Stephanie's first impulse was to scream as
she was forced to see from an entirely new point of view. She quickly realized
her vision was from the perspective of the robotic eyes. Taking a deep breath,
she focused her thoughts on the doctor.  This was going to take every last
bit of skill and endurance she had developed for this to work.

The doctor took a
step back, almost faltering while she asked “But how? How in the world am I
seeing this?”

“Don’t break my
concentration, either of you, just work,” Stephanie managed to say.

The doctor stepped
back to the machine.  The med assistant attached the neurosensors from the
robot to the doctor. Testing the connection, the doctor moved her hands. As she
did the robotic fingers followed suit.

For five extremely
long minutes the doctor worked, directing Stephanie's vision as needed.
Luckily, she was well versed in using the old-fashioned robotic
unit.  By the time she had finished, a small smile had crept across her
lips.

“Young lady,” the
doctor said, “I’ve no idea how you did that, but you just saved a young man’s
life.”

Stephanie’s mind
heard the words from the doctor.  Her head managed a small nod. Then
without a bit of energy left in her, she collapsed onto the floor.

Chapter 28     Women and
Children First

The last family
from the Melbourne finished loading up a pod.  Everyone was smiling and
waving as it started its decent to the surface.  It would be the last pod
to Mars for several hours as the station needed to make a mandatory course
adjustment. John was told it was a routine adjustment, and that the MARC
station would continue sending down pods once it had established a stable
orbit.

Jessica was
visiting again with the Ramirez family.  He was going to owe Vic and Ana a
gigantic Christmas basket when the season rolled around for all their help.
Stephanie was unloading crates with her academy classmates. With little else to
do at the launch bay, he decided to find Kyle and head up to the admiral's
office.  The first time they had met, he hadn't made a fantastic
impression.  The captain chalked it up to pent up stress that bubbled
over, but he didn’t like coming off as an impatient rookie in front of a living
legend. John hoped to give a better account of himself the next time they met.

Raising his Ksync,
John sent a page to his second in command.

“Kyle, let's meet
up at the admiral's office in five if you're not tied up,” John messaged the
Lieutenant. He then flipped his Ksync to private mode, he wanted the next
conversation with the admiral to go smoothly.

Unlike the fleet,
the MARC station used multifunctional corridor panels to pick up and transmit
signals throughout its structure.  This was a godsend over the constant
manual interaction with vidcomms aboard the Columbus.

His Ksync gave off
a tone followed by the Lieutenant's voice, “Okay John, meet you there in five.”

John had a few
minutes to observe the crew of the MARC station.  They were a
multinational crew, recruited from all over Earth. The demand for joining the
MARC program was astounding. The opportunity to explore a new world, coupled
with the feelings of hope and belonging to such an organization made for powerful
recruitment classes.

His thoughts
drifted back to his own recruitment into the program. Given his connections, he
only needed a heartbeat and a pulse to be accepted.  John instead earned
his position through merit.  He remembered the arguments he had with his
father over joining. With everything happening so quickly in the last few
weeks, he hadn't devoted nearly the time he needed to that last communiqué.
Before he could dwell more on the subject, however, Kyle appeared from around
the corner.

“So are we here to
surgically remove your foot from your mouth,” Kyle greeted him with baited
sarcasm, “or are we looking to impress this go around?”

“See if you hang
around with me long enough, you too can be a funny guy.” John dodged the
sarcasm with some of his own.

“Only when the
opportunity is wide open,” Kyle chuckled in response as he gave John a friendly
pat on the shoulder.

The two of them
approached the admiral's office, activating the door's page from the
vidcomm.  Moments later they heard a welcome, “Enter.”

Inside the office,
Admiral Conrad was speaking with engineering.

“Excellent,
proceed on schedule with the orbital shift,” she directed a tech officer on the
screen of her vidcomm.

The tech officer
saluted, and the communication terminated.

Admiral Conrad
stood and approached the two MARC sentinels. They exchanged brief salutes
before speaking.

“We’ll have a two
hour delay in deployment to the surface while we adjust the station's
position,” she informed them. “As much as I'd like to get everyone on their
way, it turns out you've timed your arrival with another visitor, Phobus.”

“I remember
reading about that,” John replied, “one of the early design problems of the
station.”

The admiral
nodded. “Yes, Commander, but after years of orbiting Mars you get used to it.
Phobos tracks around the planet at low altitude every eleven hours.  It
routinely likes to track right through our geocentric orbit above Mars.
We just step aside and continue about our business in a new position.”

“Understood,” John
acknowledged the admiral’s reasoning.  “I was hoping for a satellite
update before we headed down.”

“I made that a
priority for the techs after our last briefing,” Admiral Conrad replied. “We
launched three new satellites in the last hour.  As soon as they reach a
suitable orbit, I'll make sure to send you the feed groundside.”

“Appreciate it,
Admiral,” John thanked her.

Without warning
the entire office began to rumble as if experiencing a minor earthquake.
Managing to stay on their feet, John and Kyle looked on as the Admiral brought
up the station's systems. Reading the source of the disturbance from the
docking bay, she switched on the relevant cameras. From four different angles,
they watched as the ore carrier blasted away from the station. Without warning
another tremor, this time powerful enough to knock them off their feet, tumbled
the three of them across the room.

A series of
station-wide alarms sounded. Trying to recover their senses each of them
returned to the vidcomm display.

“What was that?”
the admiral remarked as she brought up the video feed from seconds ago.
The three of them watched as the ore carrier exploded. The impact of the
explosion had shattered the docking bay connection to the U.S.S.
Columbus.  It now floated freely in space beside the station.  The
ship appeared damaged, but largely intact.

Minimizing the
external feed, the admiral brought up engineering.

“Lieutenant Vogt!”
the admiral paged with authority. “Lieutenant, I need a damage report!”

The MARC engineer
was flying about between two different workstations. Without taking the time to
look at the vidcomm, he responded as he continued to work.

“Admiral,” he
replied, “structural integrity is sound.”  He paused, checking a variety
of systems before continuing. “The docking bays are fried, and all computer
systems on board are down.” The engineer continued to examine multiple systems
at a feverish pace, and then just stopped.  He stood staring at the screen
for a moment, only to say. “Oh no...”  He didn't get to finish his thought.

A massive
explosion rocked the station again.  The volume alone from the blast
racked their hearing and again knocked them to the ground.  The entire
station seemed to vibrate this time, the primary force of the explosion
continuing for nearly five seconds.

Once again trying
to shake the disorientation, John managed to pull himself to the Admiral's
workstation. Looking around, he saw Kyle on the floor of the office,
motionless. The Admiral was visibly battered and sitting with her back against
a wall.  Though she looked in bad shape, at least she was moving.

Prioritizing
injuries, John jumped over to Kyle's side and checked for a pulse.  It was
strong, and he could see his chest rising and falling.  Without seeing any
visible injuries, he quickly hopped over to the admiral.

“Admiral, are you
OK?” John began his first responder training.

She moved her head
to the side and opened her eyes.

“I've felt
better,” she replied with a smirk and a cough. “I think I'd better sit here
though. I've that familiar feeling of cracked ribs if that's the worst of it.”

John checked over
the admiral.  She was likely dealing with a host of broken bones. She
wasn't screaming in pain, that was a bad sign.

“What’s wrong with
my station?” the admiral managed to voice.

John stood up and
went over to her workstation. The screens that had displayed engineering were
static. He brought up a map of the entire station.  A color coded visual
of the station appeared on the screen.  The configuration, however, was
mangled. A quarter of the station was torn away from the main body and dangled
by a thread.  The entire top of the station was gone, and all related
systems from engineering were listed as offline.  Life-support was listed
as partially functional as were power systems.

“Admiral,” John
paused. “If I'm reading this right, our section of the station is a few support
beams away from floating off into deep space. Main engineering on the decks
above… it's… gone.  The rest of the station is operating on partial power
and life-support.”

The admiral
nodded, trying to absorb the magnitude of the report as she fought off the
increasing stabs of pain in her body. With a struggle she motioned for John to
attend to her side.

As he knelt next to her,
she forced herself to lift her Ksync from her belt and pressed it to his hand.

“Take this,” the
admiral directed him. “Read everything... you need to know.”

Marshaling her
strength she added, “Commander, get everyone off...Phobos...” but she did not
finish.  Her eyes were still and the pain she had been gone forever.

As John closed her
eyes, he noticed Kyle was starting to move.

“Careful there
amigo,” he warned his friend. “Make sure you have everything still attached
before you move too much.”

Kyle slowly sat up
and took stock of the situation.

Seeing the admiral
motionless, he motioned to her and asked, “She alright?”

“I'm afraid not,”
John replied. “She must have had internal injuries from that last blast.”

John returned to
the workstation.  He scanned the command prompts until he found the one he
was looking for.  Muting the alarms, John put himself on station-wide
communication. Taking a deep breath, he announced, “This is Commander Quinn.
Acting upon orders from Admiral Conrad I am declaring a station
evacuation.  All hands abandon the station. Repeat, all hands abandon the
station.”

“What did I miss?”
Kyle asked. “Why are we bailing out?”

John searched
through a bank of functional external cameras before finding the view he
wanted.  Bringing it up on the workstation, a picture of Phobos filled the
screen.  A countdown timer clicked on the bottom right noting time of
impact.

“Fire up the
thrusters and let's get the heck out of this orbit,” Kyle gave more than a
suggestion.

John looked up at
the ceiling of the office and said, “We're a little light up top Kyle.  As
in we don't have any station thrusters to fire.”

“Okay, that's
bad,” Kyle indicated.

Just then a
priority page flashed on the vidcomm.  John put the communication on
screen.  An image of Ashley appeared.

“John, I heard
your voice over the all-call. Are you alright?” Ashley asked with more than a
hint of concern in her voice.

“You know I have a
hard head,” John played off the seriousness of the situation. “Kyle and I are
just fine.  The admiral though, didn't make it.” Ashley shook her head in
disbelief.

“You're
sealed off, John,” Ashley confirmed his readout. “We can't get to that part the
ship.  Almost everything out here is off-line or half-working.”

“You have the
kids?” John asked.

“I have them now,”
Ashley confirmed.

“Then you find the
nearest escape pod and get the heck off this station,” John told her with a
firmness in his voice.

“You know I'm not
doing that, John,” she replied.

John paused,
summoning the only words that would get her to leave.

“I need to start
trying to find a way out of here Ashley, and I can't do that and worry about
all of you.  You can't play this game, not with the kids.” John could see
her starting to tear up. “I'm not giving up, not for a second, we're going to
find a way out of here,” he tried to comfort her.  “Don't give up on me
yet.”

“I'll make sure he
gets back to you, Ashley,” Kyle added. “Find that sassy friend of yours and get
her planet-side, pronto.”

John took his
finger and pretended to write on the vidcomm. He wrote an invisible giant “I,”
followed by the outline of a heart, and ended with a “U.” He then blew her a
kiss and turned off the connection before he could witness anything that would
break him.

Guessing his
friend could use a diversion, Kyle tried to bring John back to situation at
hand.

“What now, Kimosabe?”
Kyle asked John recalling that odd term Glennay had used.

John snapped out
of his gaze and cracked a bit of a smile.

“Well, Watson, the
game is certainly afoot.  I think we need a plan,” John replied.

“I just got on
board with the whole Kimosabe thing, can we keep it to that for a while?” Kyle
joked back.

John enlarged the
floor plans of their area.

“The designers
apparently assumed we'd be able to make it to that escape pod there in case of
emergency,” John said pointing at the map on the vidcomm.

“If it wasn't for
the fact this part of the ship's been peeled like a banana skin from the main
hub, then yeah sure,” Kyle added.

“That pod, if it's
still there, is smack dab in wide open outer space now,” John confirmed.

Turning away from
the vidcomm, he felt a sense of rage fill him.  Why did it seem like this
whole mission had been doomed from the start? Every corner they turned,
something was kicking them when they were down, and here they were again.

His eyes caught
one of the display cases that lined the walls of the admiral's office. That's
when he realized, though they've been down in the count many times, they'd
always found a way to stand back up.  And they would keep getting up.

Walking over to
the display case, John pressed the panel to open it.  Inside of this
particular case were several MARC suits.  Each one was a historical
timeline of the suits worn by the members of the MARC program.  The last
two suits, though, were designed for a very important purpose.

Kyle noticed
John's actions and walked over to the case himself.  Trying to figure out
what John was up to, he watched as the commander pulled out two older MARC
station suits.

Noting the nature
of the suits, Kyle protested, “You can't be serious! I’m sure there’s another
way.”

Smiling at Kyle,
John handed one of the two suits to him.

“Well Shirley we
need a plan, and don’t call me serious,” John remarked, secretly enjoying his
use of an old joke.

Chapter 29    Jump

One development of
the MARC spacesuits was their ability to use magnetic fields to move around in
space.  Rather than rely on cords or cumbersome thrust packs, the magnetic
fields allowed the wearer to safely walk, jump, and twirl about as needed –
provided there was something magnetic around to use.

Once John and Kyle
had made it to the exterior of the ship, they climbed out and stood upon the
outer hall.  Both men had spacewalked several times before, but always in
orbit around Earth.  The sight of Mars below them was one to behold.

Kyle tapped John
on the arm and pointed to the side of the planet. A gigantic shadow seemed to
block out the stars.

“That must be
Phobos. It’s not a very bright object,” commented the Lieutenant.

“We need to get a
move on, I'd rather not be here when it stops by,” John remarked.

Moving skillfully
along the hull, the two men avoided the twisted metal that used to connect them
to the main hub. Carefully walking across the connection that remained, they
made their way toward the main hub. As the progressed, the last few escape pods
blasted out of the station toward the ground below.

“I'm glad you
found that maintenance hatch, or we'd still be stuck in that tin can,” Kyle
said shaking his head.

After climbing
around several obstacles, the two stopped at the remnants of a junction. The
schematics had indicated the junction housed the nearest escape pod. If they
hadn't been in spacesuits, a look of dismay would have been visible on their
faces. Both men paused and stared at an empty pod bay.

“Okay, so we're
here,” Kyle stated, “was there a second part to this plan?”

John looked at
Kyle and replied, “I liked you better as a straight man.”

Kyle, clearly
confused countered, “I'm as straight as it gets.”

“That's more like
it,” chuckled John as he patted Kyle on the helmet and walked up the main hub
of the station.

Kyle shook his
head still confused, but followed after him.

John detached the
Ksync from the belt on his suit.  Patching in to the station's vidcomm, he
searched for an alternative pod.

“Well, I've good
news and bad news,” John told Kyle.

“Really?” Kyle
replied. “We’re standing around in thirty year old spacesuits, on the outside
of a space station, with a moon about to smack into us, and you want to play
good news bad news?”

“So the good
news,” John ignored him and continued, “it looks like everyone from the station
made it out.”

Kyle waved a hand
impatiently as he asked, “And the bad?”

“It looks like
they exhausted all the functional escape pods,” John stated simply.

“This is not
helping me keep my promise to Ashley,” Kyle commented. “How about a plan 'C'?”

“Jump off and
point your toes toward an ocean?” John asked sarcastically.

Kyle shook his
head and looked up at the stars as if to ask for help in more than one way.

“Why is the only
relief I can get around here comic?” he asked the heavens.  As his eyes
came back down from the stars, they spotted a potential solution.

“What about her?”
Kyle pointed outward from the station.

John looked in the
direction he was pointing and followed it to the U.S.S. Columbus.

“The Columbus?” he
asked.

“Yeah sure,”
continued Kyle. “She's a ship right? She moves and it isn’t locked down to a
station.”

John thought about
his lieutenant's suggestion.

“There's clearly
damage, but I spy with my little eye some thrusters,” he added.  “So, I
guess it's your turn, what's the plan?”

Kyle lifted his
foot off the ground and shook his boot.

“Good ole
fashioned leg work my friend,” he suggested. “We get a running start and jump
over to her,” Kyle added, dead serious.

John looked at the
magnetic dial on his suit. It was a great bit of hardware, but it wasn't
exactly designed with ship jumping in mind.

“I guess it could
work in theory,” John reasoned aloud. “We just run and jump to the Columbus,
aiming for the middle I'd assume.  Dialing down our magnetic field as we
jumped, then turning it back up when we reached the Columbus. It could work.”

“You can't be the
one with all the hair brained schemes,” Kyle joked.

“I suppose the
upside is, if this doesn't work, I can blame it all on you when I see Ashley in
the afterlife,” John replied.

“If you put it
that way,” Kyle shot back, “then I better go first, to test it out.”

John was about to
protest, but Kyle stopped him short.” No arguments on this one, family man.”

Kyle checked the
dial on his suit to make sure the field would adjust up and down. Then taking a
three step run he jumped toward the U.S.S. Columbus.  The magnetic field
from his suit dropped to near zero as he dialed it down.  He floated for
what seemed ages, but in reality was only a few seconds before closing in on
the ship. As he floated within a few meters, he dialed the magnetic field back
up.  Like magic, the suit attached itself to the hull of the flagship.

Kyle turned and
gave John a big wave. Seeing this, John waved back and prepared his own jump.

John said a small
prayer and gave the sign of the cross.  He ran several steps and jumped,
dialing down his magnetic field as he did so.  Hidden by darkness though
was a twisted piece of the station that caught his leg as he started to
float.  The resulting bump nudged his flight path, so that he was no
longer aiming toward the middle of the Columbus.

John's heart
immediately started racing.  He had to force it down with every bit of
concentration he had.

After a few
seconds, Kyle noticed that John was headed off-course.

“Um, John, buddy,
what's going on?” Kyle asked John via his Ksync.

John pulled his
Ksync out and replied, “It's okay, I think… yeah.  I'll just dial up the
magnetic field a bit sooner, and it should pull me right in to the ship.”

“Copy that, John,”
Kyle replied.

John worked the
magnetic dial with his free hand and turning it up. Nothing happened. He
twisted it back to zero and then all the way up.  Still nothing.

“Any time now,
John,” Kyle added, his voice clearly showing some concern.

John checked the
power indicator on his suit.  It was nearly dead.

“Guess I should
have used Duracells,” John joked, trying to hold back his own panic.

“Wait a second,”
he muttered.

Pulling his suit's
belt around so that he could see the battery pack, he checked its primary connection.
Releasing the belt, he lifted his Ksync into his field of vision and pulled up
its manual selector.

“Don't look at the
stars. Look at your screen,” he told himself, as he went through the different
functions of the device one at a time. “There you are.”

The Ksync's output
link adjusted its configuration.  John then connected his Ksync to the
battery pack of the suit.

The power
indicator on his suit came to life, showing a fast charge.  John tried the
dial again.  This time, he could feel the pull as his course
shifted.  He was floating close enough to a navigation sensor that with a
strained reach he grabbed its thin antennae. The antennae flexed but held,
bringing John with it as it straightened.

John walked down
the hull of the ship and after a couple minutes, met up with Kyle who met him
halfway.

“That went well,”
John stated simply.

“Yeah, smooth,”
Kyle agreed.

The two of them
continued on to the nearest airlock.  John entered his command override
code and the two of them slipped into the ship.

Chapter 30    A Perfectly Good
Spaceship

The two sentinels
entered the auxiliary bay of the U.S.S. Columbus. Checking the area's life
support, they thankfully took off their helmets.

“There could be
problems with ship's integrity in other parts,” John warned. “But I don't want
to keep relying on these outdated zoot suits.”

Peeling off the
layers of his old suit, John quickly replaced it with an updated MARC suit from
a nearby storage unit. Kyle cloned his friend's actions.

“Much better,”
Kyle concurred, as he made a few effortless motions, not possible in his
previous rig.

“We need to see if
anyone is still onboard,” John relayed to Kyle. “Let's pop the headgear just in
case.”

Both men reached
behind their head and from the collar of their suits pulled a clear film over
their heads.  The film sealed itself providing superior visibility along
with a breathable atmosphere.  Satisfied their suits were sealed, they
entered the ship.

The ship's
internal systems were partially intact, a fact revealed by the randomly lit
corridors and vidcomms along their route. John wasn't certain the lifts would
function, but the ones they needed were powered.   The greatest
oddity of their hurried journey to the bridge was a lack of crew members.

“I think everyone
must have been station-side,” Kyle commented as they jogged down the hall.

“We'll know in a
minute,” John replied as they stepped on the last lift to the bridge.

The lift leveled
off, and they stepped from the platform onto the bridge.  Each chair in
the room rested empty and lifeless.  The readouts from various stations
indicated the ship's systems had overloaded from the explosion. Many of the
life-support and emergency systems were either down or cycling power.
Double checking the life-support readings for the bridge, John released his
head-covering. Kyle followed suit.

“We're going to
have to spend a few minutes locating a working pod,” John stated.

“Ever drive this
ship without a crew John?” Kyle asked jokingly.

“Let's see. We did
have a bridge orientation back before launch.” John replied. “Though I'm not
certain how closely I listened. I wasn't exactly slated to be a navigator.”

Moving to the main
vidcomm, John pulled up the ship's internal comm system.

“Attention all
hands, anyone still onboard needs to page the bridge immediately,” John
announced on the ship-wide all call.

An alarm sounded
on the Navigator's workstation breaking the eerie silence.  Both men
practically jumped out of their MARC suits, caught off-guard.

Kyle let out a breath
and joked, “So much for all that shock and awe resistance training.”

John smiled and
sat down at the Navigation workstation.  Bringing up the screen he read an
all capped warning across it.

PROXIMITY ALERT – WARNING.

John jumped out of
the chair and back over to the main vidcomm.  Searching for the right
control, he found it activating the external view.  Three-quarters of the
screen was filled with a single object – Phobos.

“Uh, we might want
to consider finding the help menu, John,” Kyle remarked urgently.

John returned to
the Navigation workstation, this time searching for something he vaguely
recalled from the training.

“Activate
emergency navigation controls,” he dictated to the workstation.

A neutral sounding
computer voice responded, “Emergency navigation control authorized, voice
pattern Quinn, Jonathon, Commander U.S.S. Columbus.”

Kyle looked at the
readout on the main vidcomm.

“It's going over
seven thousand kilometers an hour, we're not going to out race it,” Kyle
informed John.

“You’re right,”
John agreed.

Bringing up a
layout of the planet's surface, John locked coordinates on a point just off the
coast of the space elevator's landing site.

“Engage emergency
thrusters, full power,” John commanded the navigation workstation.

The ship came to
life, its nose pointed now at the planet.  Another computer warning
sounded and flashed, alerting the crew to atmospheric entry.

“We're going to
get a helping hand from Mars,” John informed Kyle.

Looking at the
display, a problem occurred to Kyle.

“Um, John, you
know this ship doesn't have any landing gear right? I mean it's not even
supposed to enter the atmosphere,” Kyle pointed out.

“No problem amigo,
we're bailing out as soon as we're clear.  Let's hit up a few of those
levels with power we passed on the way up.  There's bound to be a working
pod.  Whatcha’ say we catch a ride out this time,” John said as he
motioned toward the lift.

The two sentinels
hadn't taken a step before a voice came over the vidcomm.

“Commander, what
the devil are you doing with my ship?” voiced Captain Sterling.

Taking one look at
Kyle in dismay, John turned back to the vidcomm and opened the comm channel.

“Captain, we need
to get out of here yesterday!” John advised her.  “Where are you? Is
anyone else on-board?”

“No, I was the
last one,” Captain Sterling informed John. “My last inspection of the ship was
far more eventful than expected.  The ship was hit with some sort of
blast, just as I was double checking the ducks. Turns out they are fine, but
now I'm pinned by one.”

The last bit of
information was exactly what John didn't want to hear.

“Try not to go
anywhere, Captain, we'll be right there,” John replied, cutting the thrusters
to slow their descent.

John opened his
hands and gave a “why us” look before motioning to the lift.  Both men
hopped on and started down.  Meanwhile, the captain continued to address
an unmanned vidcomm.

“Get yourself to
safety if you can, John. This thing has me locked in tight,” Captain Sterling
ordered the now empty bridge.

The two sentinels
raced down the ship's corridors, a feat made more difficult by the increased
pitch of the ship. Leaping through the door as it opened, John surveyed the
large vehicle launch bay. Several “Duck” exploration planes were locked in
place throughout the bay.  They were to be used by the colonists in
exploring and settling the planet.

One of them in
particular, had broken lockdown and pinned the captain up against a wall.
Luckily for the captain, the oddly shaped plane had lodged itself in the wall
around the captain.  A space at the “head” of the duck had left her
looking relatively unharmed.

The two men ran up
to where she was pinned.

“Anything broken?”
John questioned the captain.

“I don't think
so,” she replied. “Since you two numskulls can't follow orders, you might as
well get me out of here.”

“So you’re saying
we should 'duck out'?” Kyle joked.

The captain looked
at John and said, “As his training officer, I hold you responsible for that
remark.”

John climbed up
the explorer and opened an entry hatch.

“That's what
happens when you’re so busy saving people,” he remarked climbing inside.
“Quality control goes out the window.”

Kyle backed away
from the plane, just in case, as John started it up.  A soft "quacking"
sound grew louder signaling the duck was ready to go.  The vehicle was
named not only for its ability to perform controlled leap and glides, but also
its odd sounding engines. The official military designation was the Harrier
D-22.  The plane was destined to be re-named Duck-22 by its test
pilots. An uncanny ability to hover over difficult terrains was a fair trade
off for the peculiar noise.

Slowly, the
commander backed the vehicle out of the ship's wall.  Not surprisingly,
the wall had given out before the duck.  Its frame was made of the same
super-strength material as the ship's hull. As the vehicle pulled away, the
Captain slid down the wall where she was trapped and into a seated position.

Kyle rushed up to
her.

“If nothing is
broken, you must have a heck of a bruise,” he commented as he knelt next to
her.

“I'm OK, it just
took off a layer of skin,” she replied glancing at her thigh, “maybe more, on
my leg.”

The thigh area of
the captain's leg was exposed and saturated in blood. Kyle motioned for John to
come back out.  The engines of the plane cut, and John stuck his head out
the hatch.

“We're going to
need a first aid kit, something to compress a leg wound,” Kyle yelled up to
John.

John disappeared
inside the duck.  Within seconds, he exited the plane with a red pack
strapped around his shoulder.

The two of them
worked to dress her wound.  As they congratulated themselves on their fine
bandaging skills, a new alarm replaced the former.  Almost in unison, the
three of them looked up at the nearby vidcomm.  Flashing across the
screen, a new warning spanned the screen.

PROXIMITY
ALERT- IMPENDING IMPACT

“We don't have
time to play find the working escape pod,” John said.

Captain Sterling
tapped her fingers as she often did while thinking. Her action slowed as she
looked at the vehicle she was tapping.

“Everyone into the
duck!” exclaimed the captain.

Trusting her
judgment implicitly, the two men helped her up into the plane and followed
behind. The captain fought off the pain in her leg as she made her way to the
cockpit. Then hastily logging in to the controls, she started the
engines.  Meanwhile John took a seat beside her in the cockpit and Kyle
kneeled behind them in the small walkway.

“Commander,
override the system and get those bay doors open,” the captain instructed.

Nodding, John
worked the vehicle's workstation to access the Columbus' computer system. As he
did, the captain positioned the duck with its head pointing toward the bay
doors.

“So, we're going
to do this,” Kyle commented, trying to convince himself that flying out of a
spaceship in a transport plane was a good idea.

“Piece of cake,
Lieutenant,” the captain commented. “Just like the orbital drops I used to run
back in the Navy.”

“The Navy?” Kyle
questioned rhetorically. “How long ago was that?”

The captain
couldn't help but play on the Lieutenant's emotions after his remark. Sucking
her lips in, she managed to suppress a grin.

“My arthritis
hasn't flared up in months now, relax,” the captain said in a calm voice.

Wondering how far
the captain's sense of humor went in a crisis, John offered Kyle some
assurance.

“You're in the
presence of an ace pilot, Lieutenant,” John stated plainly. “Buck up and enjoy
the ride.”

Not ready to let
the Lieutenant off the hook yet, the captain made one more jab.

“Lieutenant, you
can buck up or not buck up, but you'd better buckle up,” she said revving the
plasma powered thrusters.

Kyle took a step
back to the rear seats and fastened himself into the chair. The two senior
officers exchanged a glance of satisfaction. Both of them pulled their
harnesses tight.

The bay doors had
finished opening, revealing a clear shot of the Martian landscape below.
The southern continent stretched around the curve of the planet contained only
by the northern oceans.

“Do you think
she'll hold up to the strain?” John asked, but wasn't sure he wanted to know
the answer.

“Hopefully we
won't rip off our wings on the way down,” the captain countered.

“Yeah, ducks don't
fly well without wings.  They don't swim as well either,” John replied.

“Well that's the
only place soft enough to put down, so I hope this one does,” added the
captain.

The Lieutenant was
clearly distressed, but not in outright panic.  His brain was telling him
the commander would love to pull one over on him, but his gut told him the
captain was all business.

Before he had a
chance to ponder it more, the plane shot out of the bay and away from the
plummeting flagship.

The duck rattled
and bucked as it dove through the Martian air currents. Designed for short
jumps, it wasn't wholly without aerodynamics. It wasn't designed for orbital
drops either. Kyle let out a yell as the duck felt like it would tear itself
apart.  A yell that didn't sound like it could come from a battle hardened
soldier.

John forced his
body to turn sideways enough for a glance at Kyle.

“You scream like
my ten-year-old on a coaster,” he tried to get out as the turbulence shook his
voice.

The captain was
not able to add to the humor.  An entirely different look encompassed her
face. Her eyes focused on the tactical display while her hands formed a column
of strength on the wheel. She was clearly in another zone. Several alarms began
to sound, its systems recognizing the flight path it followed was beyond
designed specifications.

“Cut those blasted
alarms,” the captain managed to verbalize keeping her focus on piloting.

John worked to
turn off each alarm, one at a time.  He brought up the copilot screen to
complement the pilot's. From it he could ascertain if any parts of the plane were
in danger of breaking apart. John shifted through the external views to confirm
the computer's reports.  Flipping through the visuals, he stopped in awe
at one.

The rear camera
caught an explosive picture as Phobos had finally met the MARC station. John
stared at the visual, his thoughts locked on the catastrophe filling his eyes.
The entire station, with the remainder of the fleet, was swept aside in a fiery
explosion.  Without sound, the scene seemed surreal, but the shock waves
that were closing on them confirmed its reality.

“Hold on tight!”
John exclaimed, “shock waves!”

The duck pitched
as the waves hit the ship.  New alarms began to sound all over again.

“She's holding
together like a champ,” John relayed to the captain. “And I know, already cutting
alarms.”

“Get the nav's
best guess for a water landing point,” Captain Sterling ordered. “Put it on my
tactical when you have it.”

John entered the
parameters for the nav computer's search.  After a couple of seconds, the
computer brought up several choices. John selected the one with the highest
degree of potential success and slung it over to the captain's tactical
display.

Kyle strained to
see the captain's tactical from his seated position.  Finally getting a
look at the readout his eyes bulged.

“Can't you find
one with a chance of success?” he questioned John.

“This isn't like
your homework from high school,” John retorted. “The computer doesn't do fuzzy
math.”

The captain guided
the duck along the computed trajectory with amazing precision. As the plane
neared the ocean she complimented her fellow officers.

“Make or break
time gents. Either way, it has been an honor,” she quickly stated.

The duck slammed
into the ocean waters. The cockpit's harnesses strained against the force of
the impact, but much like the plane itself, held tight.

Coming to their
senses the three MARC officers saw a new view through their window, one of
murky blue waters.  As soon as her limbs would move, Anita Sterling
brought her hands to the jumping paddle and fired the vehicle's vertical lift
thrusters.  The duck, instead of sinking deeper, blasted upward and out of
the ocean.  Gliding gracefully as a bird, it arced across the sky and
landed a kilometer away upon a rocky beach.

*

Chapter 31    Left Turn at
Albuquerque

Dominic was
parsing the data streams from his latest trial when a page from the bridge came
over his vidcomm.  He ignored the flashing light and continued to review
the last bits of information.  In addition to the visual page, an audio
tone began to sound from the vidcomm.

“How exactly do
you want thrown off the ship, Captain?” he yelled at the vidcomm.  Moving
to the panel, he activated the visual screen so that he could lash the captain
more effectively.

“Dr. Andreou, our
guests will be arriving sooner than expected,” the captain began.

Reprimanding him,
Dominic stated, “It is beyond my capacity to reason why you would page me given
my last warning.”

Pausing a second
as his anger stopped long enough to comprehend what the captain had said. His
demeanor changed as he asked, “What do you mean our guests are arriving early?”

“O-Sophia
commanded me to send the pods at full speed,” Captain Dranius replied. “And
Doctor,” the captain added, “the high prophet was somehow aware of the ruse.”

Dominic thrust his
fingers together and twisted them. He needed more time to finish his
project.  She couldn't see the lab now, too many questions would be asked.

“Captain, I need
all technicians to my lab and I mean all,” Dominic ordered. “How long
until O-Sophia arrives?” he followed up.

“Her party will
arrive in just under an hour,” Captain Dranius answered.  “Doctor, there's
another event of note you should be aware of.”

“Your timing is
impeccable, Captain, what other event?” Dominic asked.

“The MARC fleet
arrived at their station,” the captain informed him. “All eleven ships docked.”

“All eleven
ships... All eleven?” Dominic muttered to himself, the information clearly more
than he was ready to handle.

A rage began to
rise up through his core, erupting into words, he proclaimed, “Blow it! Blow
the transport! Blow them into pieces! Tell me when every last scrap of that
station is floating down to Mars!”

Dominic started
dissembling his lab, then stopped and turned back to the vidcomm.

“Send the techs!
Send them now!” he yelled at the screen.

#

It had been
several years since the two of them had spoken in person. Dominic looked upon
Dr. Elizabeth Stanton, O-Sophia, with an inquisitive look.

He bowed deeply
and greeted her. “O-Sophia you honor us with your visit.  Though my eyes
have grown hazy through the years, your beauty remains that of our youth."
The high philosopher nodded her head with a smile acknowledging his greeting.

“The Order smiles
upon the blessings you have brought us through the years, Dr. Andreou,” she
responded.  “I had hoped to see this famous ship and its crew earlier
today,”

“Won't you and
your party join in the observation area?” Dominic motioned to the interior of
the ship. “From there we can see the wonders that you've created on Mars.”

“I would like that
and to see more of this ship,” she stated pleasantly. “I'm impressed by the
technological achievements you've made in such a short time. If we are to
safeguard our society on Mars, we may need a fleet of these ships to defend
ourselves.”

“By the Order,” he
replied, hiding his reluctance to provide a tour.

The group
consisted of seven well-armed soldiers from her personal escort along with the
archon and Dr. Andreou.   Four soldiers stood fast as the party
walked, securing the loading area to the Argo.  Three of them continued
into the ship's interior with O-Sophia, Dr. Andreou, and the archon.

“The Americans
were played as the fools they are,” Dominic elaborated as they walked down the
ship's corridors. “They had no idea they were funding the construction of this
ship or its experimental propulsion systems.  The amount of fat in their
MARC program was so thick we seldom required the additional funding you
provided.”

“It is ironic the
death throes of democracy would give birth to such a perfect instrument,” Dr.
Stanton commented as she caressed a panel along the ship’s corridor.  “Let
us use it to protect our young society as it matures into greatness.”

As the group
continued winding its way through the corridors, Dr. Stanton noticed the
flickering of a direction cue in the wall that had been carelessly left
on.  She stopped suddenly, causing her entourage to follow suit, and
tapped the direction cue. A small circular light appeared in the wall.
Inscribed on it was the universal symbol for science.  The circle flashed,
then moved down the wall of the hallway. As it disappeared around the bend to
the right, the circle then reappeared next to O-Sophia.   It repeated
its guidance over and over following her progress down the hall.

“To your lab I
presume, Doctor?” asked the high philosopher.  “I'm fascinated more by
your machines than the stars.” Without waiting for an answer, she began to
follow the light on its course along the corridors.

Dominic searched
for an excuse to delay her.  The ideas he conjured would sound insolent or
worse... inspire more curiosity.

The party wound
its way around a bend, and then through the doors of the main lab.

“This must be
where the pods originate,” Dr. Stanton declared.

“Yes it is,”
confirmed Dominic. “This is the mechanical room. The true beauty resides in the
lobby below.”

“Actually I enjoy
the interworking of machines,” Dr. Stanton explained. “Of all people, Dr.
Andreou, you should know I like to see what makes things work.” Walking over to
one of the many unused pods, she admired the beauty of the device from the
exterior.

“They are as
beautiful on the outside as the inside,” she commented.  “We had a remarkably
swift ride up from the surface with the help of your captain.  How fast
can this descend to the surface?”

“We have not had
the time to test the pods fully, O-Sophia,” he answered. “Though I would
suspect at maximum speed the occupants would likely pass out from excessive
stimuli.”

“Is that your
control center?” Dr. Stanton asked, pointing to Dominic's office.

“In a manner of
speaking yes,” he replied with the least amount of enthusiasm he could project.
“I sip a warm beverage there while I process meters of data. This bay is where
my experiments come to life.”

“Indulge me,
Doctor,” she said, while heading up the ramp to his office area.

Dominic could feel
the blood coalescing in his face as they entered his main work area. Almost
panic stricken, he quickly palmed a small rectangular case he had left on a
side workstation.

Pointing toward
the main workstation, he commented, “This chair has endured countless hours of
my buttocks you see, all in the name of science.” He tried to laugh at his own
joke as a feeble distraction.

The archon gave
the doctor a look of disapproval for his humor’s taste, or lack of it, with
O-Sophia present.

“Not to worry,
General,” Dominic said. “I only have that one joke.”

An incoming page
began to flash on the vidcomm.  Before the doctor could attempt another
distraction, the audio activated. In his efforts to avoid a visual
confrontation with Dr. Andreou, the captain conveyed his message quickly via
audio.

“Doctor,” he
related in a low voice, “The ore carrier has been detonated, and the MARC
station suffered catastrophic damage.  The only ship suffering damage,
however, was the Columbus.”

Dominic could feel
the blood draining out of his head, his cheeks, and into his stomach. The now
pale scientist was looking at a very upset leader of the Order.

Dr. Stanton swiped
off the vidcomm.

“Dominic,”
questioned Elizabeth, “did I just hear the words Columbus as in the U.S.S.
Columbus?” Moving slowly toward him, she continued. “You and I both know who is
on that ship don't we?” Sensing her displeasure with the Doctor, the soldiers
brought their weapons to a ready position. “If one hair of her's is hurt, one
single strand of hair, Dominic,” her voice grated and then paused.

Before she could
continue, Dominic brought the rectangular case in front of him. The soldiers,
seeing him bring forth an item, brought their weapons up in warning.

“Wait, wait,” he
asked for patience, taking out a small rectangular case. “I can explain it with
this.”

Slowly opening the
case, Dominic revealed his latest neuroband.  Taking the band out, he drew
it over his head in a slow motion.

“I've been
following orders, the general's orders,” Dominic said as he brought the full
might of his consciousness to bear on the archon.

Slowly the archon
raised his pistol toward Dr. Andreou.  From his position, however, only
Dominic could see the look of terror in the general's eyes. Before the soldiers
could react, the archon turned, swung his pistol in the high philosopher's
direction, and fired a single shot from his pistol.  It stuck O-Sophia mid
torso causing her fall backward onto the floor. Momentarily frozen in horror,
the soldiers overcame their shock and fired multiple bursts into the
archon.  His body recoiled from the impact, falling lifeless to the floor.

Dominic continued
to think on his feet. Shifting his concentration now to Elizabeth, the
neuroband wrapped his thoughts in fire. Pushing through the pain, he fought to
complete his hasty plan.

Dominic knelt down
to O-Sophia as she tried to speak.  He motioned the two soldiers to her
side.

Seemingly using
her last ounce of strength, she uttered the words, “You are the High
Philosopher now, my friend.  Let these soldiers be my witness.”

Slowly her hand
reached to his arm.  Then without another word, her breathing stopped and
her eyes stared blankly into space.

“We must get her
to the med station!” Dominic said with his best attempt at urgency in his
voice.

The two soldiers
lifted her body and quickly followed Dominic out of the lab and down the
corridor.

#

Arriving at the
med station, Dominic directed the two soldiers to place O-Sophia on an exam
bed.  A medical technician entered from the adjoining lab room.

“Do everything you
can to save her!” Dominic directed the tech with as much feeling as possible.

The tech quickly
examined her and then directed the soldiers to guide her bed into the next
room.  At the same time, he summoned his assistants to the med station
through the room's vidcomm. Within moments, the technician's assistants had
hurried into the room. Dominic summoned the soldiers aside.

“Bring me that
traitor,” he directed the soldiers. “May he live to answer for this treason.”
They bowed and followed their new orders.

Once they left,
Dominic returned to the operating room.  As the three men worked furiously
to resuscitate O-Sophia, Dominic removed a small pistol from under his
robe.  They didn't stand a chance of defending themselves as he shot them
one at a time in quick order.

“Dead men tell no
tales,” he said in a low voice.

Activating the
vidcomm, Dominic contacted the bridge on audio only.

“Yes, Doctor,” the
captain acknowledged his page.

“I'm assuming your
visitors have rushed off to my lab?” Dominic said to check his prediction.

“Indeed they
have,” Captain Dranius confirmed.

“Dispatch my guard
to the med station and then report to my office,” Dominic directed him.

“By the Order,”
the captain replied.

Dominic terminated
the vidcomm's connection. Turning back to his old friend and former leader, he
slowly approached her bed.

“I wish your
curiosity did not match your intellect, Dr. Stanton,” Dominic spoke to her
motionless body. “This was not meant to happen.” Dominic left the operating
room and returned to the larger examination area. Within a few minutes the
members of his handpicked guard had arrived.  The group of six formed a
half circle in front of the philosopher and then knelt on one knee.

The leader of the
group awaited command. “By your Order.” Dominic considered the possibilities of
the situation.

“O-Sophia was the
bedrock our society was built upon,” he stated. “We have since spiraled into
the heavens. From this day forward address me as O-Arete as I have led our
society into greatness.”

O-Sophia's guard
will return shortly with the archon,” Dominic started his instructions to the
men. “Direct them to the brig with him, dead or alive. This room is to be put
under guard. No one enters it without my permission.”

Dominic strode
through the middle of the semi-circle, his guard falling in behind him as the
exited the room.  They took positions at the door, three to either
side.  Satisfied with the immediate circumstances, Dominic left to meet
the captain.  There were a few new details to arrange.

#

Her chest felt as
though a hundred pound weight rest on it.  The lids of her eyes were
locked by dried tears. Blinking repeatedly, Elizabeth tried to regain her
vision.  She was laying down in a small anesthetic room.  Several
monitors were angled at different positions around her bed.  They were
displaying a variety of three dimensional images of a female body… Her
body.

It all rushed back
at once.  Adonis had turned, his eyes looked upon her with a horror she
had never seen before.  His weapon rose and with a strange burning in her
chest she had fallen.  She had fallen straight back, landing with her head
turned to the side. Almost in slow motion, she saw his body fall upon the floor
beside hers.

From that point
on, she was in a dream.  Her hand reached up to Dominic who had knelt
beside her.  But she did not command her muscles to contract.  Her
vocal cords stretched and strained to form sounds.  But she did not choose
the words that left her mouth.

Elizabeth was a
spectator to the scene as she watched her general remain motionless. Within
seconds her love and her station had been taken from her again.  The last
thing she recalled was a warm feeling settling over her and then sleep.

Shaking her head,
Elizabeth forced herself to recognize her own thoughts, her own motions.
Sitting up, she was appalled by the bodies that covered the floor. The men were
dressed as technicians and bore the insignia of the Argo. Elizabeth surmised
she was yet aboard the ship. She dropped to the ground and examined the bodies.
A single shot had felled the men.

She hadn't thought
to check her own condition. Looking at her robe, a symmetrical hole in her
robes pointed to a mark above her heart.  Her skin there was blackened,
but she counted herself lucky.  A few centimeters lower and she wouldn't
be here.  A small smile caught her lips, however, as she realized the curse
of the Mars had saved her.

What had happened?
That look of terror in Adonis’ eyes, how could he harm her? Did he intend to
harm her or had the same unearthly powers that had taken control of her body,
of her mind, possessed her love as well?  No... It was not an unearthly
power. It was his thoughts, Dominic's thoughts filled her head, and thoughts
that were filled with a lust for power.  He would answer for this. He
would answer for this and pay dearly.

Opening the
doorway, Elizabeth saw the central section of the med station.  The room
was full of medical workstations, beds, and examination equipment.  She
did not see a technician or anyone else inside the room. Feeling for her Ksync,
she smiled as the device conveniently remained.

She spoke to it in
low whispers, “My guard to the med station of the Argo, come immediately!”

The Ksync wasn't
transmitting.  Examining the display on the small device, Elizabeth
realized personal communications wouldn't work on the ship. If she used the
ship's vidcomm, the Argo's crew would be alerted. She couldn't trust their
loyalty.

Before she could
plan her next move, Elizabeth heard the door opening. Without hesitation, she
darted behind an exam workstation. Two crewmen from the Argo stepped in to the
room.  They were soldiers bearing plasma weapons and wearing combat
uniforms.

“There's nothing
here,” one of them commented. “The bridge has their wires crossed.” The other
soldier nodded, and both of them left the room.

Her suspicions
grew as her options for escape dwindled.  She likely had been left for
dead in the operating room.  Elizabeth feared her luck wouldn't save her
from a second encounter with Dominic. Her thoughts raced and panic started to
set in.

Scanning the room,
she desperately searched for any way to summon help or escape her prison.
Her eyes caught a blinking light in the back of the room. With a gleam in her
eyes, a daring plan was hatched.  Elizabeth started to gather several
items from around the room. Finding a medical bag, she opened it up and filled
it to capacity.

“I can't believe
I'm even thinking of doing this,” she argued with herself.

Slinging the pack
around her shoulder, she made her way to the back of the room. Lined up along
the back wall were several medical escape pods.  Elizabeth climbed into a
pod shaking her head as she sealed the hatch. Once inside, she surveyed the
controls.  It wasn't difficult to find the emergency launch button.
Flipping the clear lid that covered the button, Elizabeth closed her eyes and
smacked the controller.  A computer voice spoke through the internal
speakers.

“Emergency launch
sequence activated,” the pod indicated. “Launching in five, four, three, two,
one...”

The pod shot out
of the Argo firing its thrusters as it pushed away from the ship.  Once
again, a computer voice sounded in the pod.

“Planetary object
detected. Plotting landing zone,” it informed her.

“Let's try for a
soft landing if you would,” Elizabeth addressed the pod while giving it a
gentle tap.

Chapter 32   Turn of Fortune

A fireball
lit up the daytime sky and for a split second rivaled the sun's intensity. The
clouds above were pierced with the streaming remains of the station.  Like
a massive firework display, they arced across the sky in fiery defiance of the
atmosphere.  Ashley had watched the vidcomm in disbelief as Phobos
collided with the MARC station. She had been born with many gifts, found
success in her work, and been blessed with a loving family. In seconds her life
suffered a reversal of fortune.

Ashley's legs gave
out from under her as she collapsed to the ground.  Before she hit,
however, her body was supported by friends who had been watching the vidcomm
with her. The events felt like a surreal movie she could not pause.

Dozens of people
had gathered in the aftermath of the exodus around a make-shift command center.
Her best friend Glennay, tears streaming down her face, attempted to hold her
up. Next to her was Tyler also trying to keep her up. The rest of the faces
were strangers.

“Ashley,” Glennay
tried to get out, “I'm, so, so sorry.”

Although she heard
the words, her ears were numb. Her ability to comprehend Glennay's sympathies
was lost.

Tyler fumbled with
his words to Ashley. “They were good blokes, I'm sorry for your loss.”

Ashley nodded as
she found her footing again. With the return of her senses came the magnitude
of the events.  Her eyes began to tear up as she surveyed the surrounding
scene. She hoped to find Vic's face in the crowd.  Ana and he had the kids
right now, squeezed in with a family from The Melbourne, in one of the
make-shift camps. How in the world was she going to tell the kids what
happened?

The crew of the
U.S.S. Columbus had been taken in by the other colonists of the fleet.  A
temporary camp site was set up after the last escape pod had landed. Some of
the colonists had already left for their dome city on high speed
transports.   Four colonial groups remained: the Columbus, the
Melbourne, the Panyu, and the Mumbai.

The Panyu and
Mumbai colonists had been slated to depart hours before the station's
explosion.  Both groups, however, were diverted due to the lingering
problems with the high speed transports to their dome cities. It was agreed
that the Panyu would transport to New Russia and the Mumbai would transport to
New America. From there they would deploy or wait until the high speed
transport was restored to their home city.

Vic and Ana had
been taken in by a family from the Melbourne as had Ashley and her children.
Vic had recently stopped by to assure Ashley the kids were settled in with Ana.
It was that moment all sorts of chaos had broken out.

Catching sight of
her, Vic had come over from where he was watching the vidcomm and gave her a
hug.

“He's probably
telling a bad joke or two already to the folks upstairs,” Vic tried to comfort
her.

Ashley nodded as
the tears flowed freely from her now.

“Hey, Hey!” yelled
one of the technician still at the vidcomm. “There's some sort of ship on the
scanner. Looks like it blasted out of the belly of the Columbus before it
exploded.”

“What?” Ashley
exclaimed. “The Columbus was cleared of personnel.”

She looked around
the control center. They hadn't had time for a full head count, but there were
several people from the Columbus she hadn't seen yet.

Glennay and Ashley
rushed over to the vidcomm as did several other colonists.

“Can you get a
lock on the ship?” Glennay asked.

The technician
shook his head. “There's too intense of an electrostatic storm up there to get
a read on it.”

Stepping forward
from the crowd the navigation officer of the Columbus, Ensign Simmons,
approached the vidcomm.

“Let me have a go
at it,” he indicated to the technician.

The mobile sensors
were an over inflated toy compared to those on the Columbus.  Luckily the
navigator was used to thinking on his feet as a result of his experiences.
He worked to upgrade the sensor's configuration.

“You have to be
joking,” the ensign commented. “That's a duck, it has to be.  Probably why
you didn't recognize it as a ship, it's not one.”

“A duck...” mused
Ashley. “There's only two people I know who could fly a duck down from orbit,
and Steph is planet-side.”

“You think...”
Glennay began, “the captain, right?”

“I haven't seen
her,” Ashley concurred. “It's the only person that makes sense.”

For a second, her
heart leapt at the thought that someone could have survived the explosion, but
her mind couldn’t think of a logical way John could be on board. She had
watched the Columbus being blown out of the docking bay herself, and her
husband was trapped in the admiral's office.

“The plane is
being rocked as its coming down, but it looks to be holding together,” Ensign
Simmons stated.  “They're on course to splash down off the coast, about a
kilometer off shore.”

Ashley turned and
looked for Tyler.  He was still with them watching from behind the
technician.

“Tyler,” she
called for him, “can you scrape up a vehicle?"

“Fast as a
brumby,” Tyler replied as he sprinted off toward his camp.

“I'll find us a
medic,” Glennay offered as she started to call out for one.

Several minutes
later, the group of friends had boarded a “Roo” as Tyler called it.

Speeding toward
the touchdown, the passengers were sullen. The uncertainty of the situation did
not lend itself to wishful thinking.

“Splashdown in two
minutes,” relayed Ensign Simmons from the vehicle's nav screen.

The roo continued
on its intercept course to the descending plane.

“The duck's in the
water,” the ensign verified.

“Can this roo
travel over water?” Ashley asked.

“It goes over
water, through water, and underwater,” Tyler said as he drove. “She's more of
an ute than a racer.”

Ensign Simmons
smacked the side of his console with excitement.

“Whoa!” he let out
a surprising yell, “no need to get wet. The duck just launched itself clean out
of the water toward shore. I’m adjusting our heading. ETA three minutes.”

The two vehicles
met along the rocky shoreline.  When the roo pulled up, the duck had its
main hatch open.  Lying on the ground outside was Captain Sterling.
Lieutenant Jennings was at her side, checking an obvious wound on her
leg.  Standing beside both of them was Commander Quinn.

Piling out of the
roo's hatch the crew ran to meet them.

John saw his old
friends rolling out of the Aussie vehicle.  Spying Ashley, he let out a
yell and waved in her direction.

“Hey there,” John
yelled over to them. “If you’re done touring the outback with Crocodile Dundee
over there, how bout you lend us a hand?”

The group rushed
over to assist.  Running ahead of the pack was Ashley, nearly toppling
John as she threw her arms around him.

“See what I have
to go through to get a little affection around here,” John joked.

The group traded
despair for joy with a round of hugs, handshakes, and laughter. Once the
captain was stabilized by the med tech, the crews split into new groups for the
return. It was a much slower, but happier trip back to the camp.  When
they arrived, a crowd had gathered to greet them.  They burst into cheers
upon seeing the surviving crew from the Columbus. The ordeal had stirred a
range of emotions in everyone.  Few though could match the joy that was
felt by the Quinn family, reunited once again.

#

In the chaos that
followed the station explosions, the accident in the loading bay was lost among
the survivors.  For Stephanie and Kevin it was a moment in time that could
change them forever.

Stephanie found
the med section of the compound.  Examining the Ksyncs outside, she
eventually found him. Stephanie tentatively knocked at the doorway and entered
the small tent. Inside Kevin was resting and recovering from the injuries he
had suffered.  The miracles of modern medicine were substantial, but he
would still require several weeks of natural healing.  Physically the
accident's scars would heal, but emotionally it could prove terminal.

Seeing Stephanie,
Kevin quickly put on a smile and greeted her. “How’s my guardian angel?”

Stephanie masked a
cringe at his remark unsure of its true meaning.

“Are you sure you
don’t mean, ‘How’s the crazy woman that ran over me?’” she jokingly inquired.

“It’s not like you
tried to break up with me the hard way,” he joked back.

Stephanie sat down
in a chair next to Kevin.  She reached over and gently grabbed his hand.
She tried to smile at Kevin, but looked down, her hair falling over her
face.  Kevin could tell that she was sobbing underneath her long locks.

“It’s going to be
okay, Steph,” Kevin tried to comfort her, not realizing he picked the wrong
words to say.

Stephanie looked
up, tears clearly running down her cheeks, and replied, “It’s not OK. It may
never be OK.” She wiped the tears away from her face with the side of her hand.
“You can’t keep watching over me. Not you, not my dad.” She stood up and turned
away from Kevin.

“I like watching
over you, Steph,” Kevin responded. “It’s what someone that really…someone that
really likes you does.”

Stephanie shook
her head. “This isn’t about you, Kevin. It’s about me. I’m the one pushing it,
looking for that rush. Not you.”

“It's not you,
Steph,” Kevin countered. “It’s the highs you ride.”

“It’s my choice,”
she stopped him from continuing. “Staying up on the sim, skipping my ments,
looking for trouble, is my choice.”

“You’re the best
pilot the academy has seen,” Kevin tried to stay positive. “You’re a great
friend, and you make a mean stack of flapjacks.” He turned his cheek and acted
as though he was trying to talk under his breath, “…Though your mom still makes
the best omelets.”

Stephanie couldn’t
help but laugh at his last remark.  Her step-mother’s omelets have been a
thorn in her side forever.  They are too good and Kevin makes sure to
comment about them every chance he gets.  It was his inside joke with her.

Poking around the
small tent, Stephanie pretended to straighten things as she went. All the
while, she tried to find the right words say. After a few silent minutes she
stopped pacing and returned to Kevin’s bedside.

“When I was a kid,
my father introduced me to one of his friends,” Stephanie began. “Strange as it
seems now, he helped me out.  I guess he invented the ments that I take
because he has my deal too. I remember a few of the stories he told me about
our disorder. He was trying to help me.”

Stephanie’s gaze
shifted upward as if recalling past events.

“For as long as I
can remember, I’ve been fighting this,” she continued. “Recording when I sleep,
what I eat, how much I exercise, those are just some of the things I’ve done.
Taking my ments has been a battle. I don’t like turning off that part of me.”

She stood up, once
again taking Kevin’s hand.

“This is who I am,
Kevin,” Stephanie said quietly.  “I’m not going to run from it anymore. If
I’m going to be the pilot I want to be, then I have to accept this thing. If I
want to be, ‘someone that really likes you’ too, then I need to meet this head
on.  There’s no more denying it.”

Kevin grasped her
hand and pulled her toward him. As her hand reached his face he gave it a kiss.

“You’re one of the
bravest people I know,” Kevin said. A playful smile crept across his face as he
added “Well next to anyone who dares fly a hovercraft around you.”

She wrested her
hand away from his grasp and gave him a playful smack on the shoulder.

“I’ll remember
that the next time you need patching up,” she shot back with a big smile.

“I’m glad you
found that, inside yourself,” Kevin commented.  “I think the plan is for
Kyle to head out with your father soon.  The captain is going to take me
on, I think.  We can both hobble around in New America for a bit and rest
up.  So you might have to make it a few days without me around.”

“I don’t know what
my plan is yet,” Stephanie said. “If we're apart, don’t you even think about
getting that cast signed by any cute locals.  I wouldn’t want you to see
what an angry guardian angel looks like.”

“No way,” Kevin
joked “My insurance only covers one major surgery a month.”

Stephanie laughed
along as they talked away the afternoon.

Chapter 33   I Say So! Okay?

The high speed
transport system was the first order of business after the construction of the
dome cities. Its primary purpose was to transport personnel and resources from
each dome city to the space elevator and back.  Due to the unstable nature
of the planet, the supports of the transport were specifically designed to flex
and move like a spring.  The coils of the transport provided the magnetic
field to hover the transport. To gain momentum or decelerate, the coil stations
were equipped with plasma beam projectors.  The transports would be sped
or slowed by the beams as they passed through each station.

This
transportation was effective when functional.  The connections between all
dome cities except New China and New India were operating.  This was great
for the colonists that were heading to those dome cities. For the colonists
planning on launching from either of the latter cities, however, they had been
forced to use alternate locations.

In the hours since
the destruction of the MARC station, an emergency command center was firmly
established at the hub. Luckily the weather was cooperating, providing warmth
and fresh air for the suffering. Captain Sterling, had recovered well enough to
be instituted as the leader of the hub.  The captains of the three other
ships made up the remainder of the hub’s command team.

The first order of
business was allocating transports to the colonists and MARC station crew. The
first transports were assigned to the wounded, with the exception of Captain
Sterling who remained. Families were kept together, so that if one member of a
family was injured the rest of the family would be scheduled to leave on an
early transports.

John made it a
point to slip his way into the unofficially closed meeting.  He knew the
captains were making transport decisions, and he wanted to make sure they
didn't ship off certain people. Captain Sterling noticed his appearance and
briefly paused the meeting.

“Commander,”
Captain Sterling addressed him. “I assume you're not here to request first
class accommodations.”

He smiled and
replied, “Sorry to intrude, Captain. I need to request members for my team
before they are otherwise assigned.”

“I take it you're
not heading on to New America,” Captain Sterling surmised.

John turned and
closed the door. He almost tripped over Ashley who had let herself in.

“You're getting
sneakier these days,” John remarked under his breath. “I guess I'm rubbing off
on everyone in some way.”

“Sorry, Captain,”
John gave a delayed response, “you understand my paranoia.”

“I need to bring
Dominic in, and it's clear there's not a lot of room left for reasonable
doubt,” John requested. “He has to expect some sort of response from the
colonies, let alone MARC control. Do you know what is going on with New China
and New India?”

Captain Sterling
looked to the other captains for answers.

“Captain Ho,
Captain Gupta,” the captain addressed them and paused. “Do you have any insight
into the black-out?”

Captain Gupta
replied, “This is not a secret among my crew. I have not heard of anyone
successfully talking to New India, nor have I been able to reach anyone myself.
Some of the families have relatives already living here.  I can see by the
fear in their eyes that something is wrong, but no-one knows what or why.”

“Thank you, Captain,”
Anita replied.

Captain Ho then
commented, “I wish that I could offer some insight into this as well, but we
have not been able to communicate with our dome city as well.”

Nodding her head,
Captain Sterling considered the situation.

“Commander, what
do you propose?” she asked.

“A small team of
Sentinels travels to New China alongside the path of the transport,” John
began. “Once we reach New China, we'll ascertain the status of the dome
city.  If friendly, we will present our grievances with the MARC general
in charge. If compromised, then we'll insert ourselves with stealth, locate
Doctor Andreou, and retrieve him for trial in New America.”

“That is a large
assignment for anyone to undertake, Commander Quinn,” remarked Captain Gupta.

Ashley was
noticeably rocking back and forth in her stance at the discussion.  The
captain was about to ask for her input when Ashley jumped into the
conversation.

“Don't you think
for two seconds I'm letting you go off on some macho save the women and
children first operation again,” Ashley said. She then added.” Without me.”

John rubbed his
forehead at the exact situation he was hoping to avoid.

“There's no one
else I'd rather have with me if we're diffusing a bomb, or say repairing a
plasma engine before we crash into the sun,” John tried to set up his response
carefully. “But in a potential tactical operation, I need to move fast and I
need the sentinels I trained watching my back.”

He looked
carefully at her face to read her reaction, but that wasn't necessary.

“No,” she started
to tear, “not again, not so soon.” She tried to force back her emotions. “We
came here as a family, we trained for all sorts of crazy situations,” Ashley
paused. “You know what I'm talking about!” she yelled at him. “And then, you
and Kyle go off, and I left you, and you almost...” her emotions rolled out,
cutting herself off.

Jonathon reached
out and brought her close while she tried to calm herself.

“So what you're
saying is,” John tried to joke softly, “if we're together and we crash the duck
that's okay, but if we're apart and the plane crashes then it's not?”

Ashley hit John on
the arm a few times as she said, “Stop trying to make me laugh...And yes,
together, that's what's important.”

The captains, in
the meantime, didn’t know how to react except for Captain Sterling.

“I think we can
find a compromise here you two,” she said.  “We'll be finished in about a
half-hour, come back then and we'll get this all hashed out.”

The two of them
thanked the captains for their time and went back to the camp, hand in hand.

#

Due to Captain
Sterling's role in the camp and her injuries, the second best pilot on Mars
would be running the duck's controls. Standing on the ground below, Stephanie
looked up at the cockpit of the plane.

“Looks like we're
going to have to graduate you early from the academy, My Dear,” Captain
Sterling voiced as she hobbled up behind her.

Stephanie turned
and seeing the captain gave her a careful hug.

“I can't believe
everyone trusts me with this,” Stephanie told the captain.

“You have all the
right stuff, Stephanie,” she replied. “You have the best instincts I've seen in
a pilot, well since me that is.” She feigned a joke. “Moreover you’ve faced
challenges inside and out. As I expected, you’ve met those challenges. The
young woman standing before me has begun to find herself. Don’t stop the
journey, Stephanie. It never ends.”

Straitening her
stance the captain ordered, “Cadet, attention.”

Though surprised,
Stephanie acted quickly and snapped into a stance of attention. The captain
reached to her jacket and removed her pilot's wings.  With a uniformity of
motion, she attached the wings to Stephanie's uniform. Finally the captain took
a step back and exchanged salutes with Stephanie.

“At ease, Ensign
Quinn,” the captain ordered.

The two officers
of the MARC program exchanged large smiles. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Jennings and
Mercedes approached the duck, both with packs in tow for the loading doors.

“Go join your
crew, Ensign,” the captain stated. “Dismissed.”

Leaving with a hop
in her step, Stephanie bounded to the rear of the plane intent on showing off
her new wings.

Anita smiled to
herself. She was content in knowledge that as her career began to a wind down
another soldier, cut from material like hers, would take up the good fight. She
turned and started back to the command post.

“I've gone from
leading the Sentinels to leading the Swiss Family Robinson!” John exclaimed as
he threw another pack into the duck.

The open loading
doors revealed several compartments full of packs and supplies.  Squeezed
into various seats the crew of “The Compromise”, as John now referred to the
duck, prepared for their journey.

After a short and,
some would say, one sided debate, the crew consisted of: Commander Quinn, Dr.
Quinn, Stephanie (now Ensign Quinn), Jessica, Lieutenant Jennings, Lieutenant
Mercedes, Sub Lieutenant Anderson, and of course Wispy. The roster was accepted
by Commander Quinn with the stipulation that he would choose the members of his
team for insertion at New China.

Jessica was scrunched
in her chair, but still happy as a clam.  This was the time she had
dreamed of. Her family was going to settle the West... or the East, or
whichever direction they were headed.  Her mom was strapped in beside her,
and Wispy was hovering on her lap.  Everything was perfect.  Then she
caught sight of her father and the perfect picture was ruined.  He was
wearing the hat.

“That hat!”
she murmured. Even in a new world, her father sought to embarrass her.

As she looked
around, Jessica couldn’t help feeling more excited by the second.
Everyone was packed up and ready for an adventure.  Even Wispy was all
charged and ready to go. She knew all the people going in the duck save one,
they called him Sub Lieutenant, SLT, or just Tyler.  He had a way of
talking though that made her laugh.  He called the front of the duck a
bonnet, and the back of the duck a boot. She couldn't wait to find out what
other names he had for things.

With the duck
finally packed, John jumped into the plane's cargo area.  He couldn't believe
how much gear had been packed away inside.  The duck was made to help a
family, one family, settle the planet.  It wasn't built for a motley group
this large. He even packed gear inside the ATV parked in the cargo bay.  A
discussion to ditch the scout vehicle ended quickly as everyone realized the
benefits of taking it along.

John made his way
through the duck to the cockpit where Stephanie was seated in the pilot's
chair.  It was a sight he was going to have to get used to.  Only
yesterday, it seemed, he was developing nervous ticks as she learned how to
drive a ground car.  Now in the blink of an eye, she was wearing the
captain's wings and piloting him into the jungles of Mars.

John sat down in
the navigation chair next to Stephanie.

“Don't forget to
take off the parking brake,” he said straight-faced as he adjusted his chair.

“Oh you mean
this?” asked Stephanie as she hit the emergency klaxon in the duck.

“Funny,” John
replied quickly turned off the alarm. “Nothing to worry about,” he yelled to the
back of the plane.

John pulled up the
navigation panel and plotted a course along the high speed railway.

“Just follow the
yellow brick road, Steph,” John pointed out the window toward the rail, “you
know it as the railway. Keep it low over the rail and we'll use it as a natural
nav marker.”

“Piece of cake,”
Stephanie replied. “How soon do you want to get there?” she asked.

“Slow and steady
wins the race kid,” John replied.

Stephanie looked
mischievously at her father and said, “Those words aren't in my vocabulary. But
if you mean drive at your speed, I'll try to channel my childhood.”

“Everybody's a
comedian these days,” John replied. “Just get us there in one piece is all I
ask.”

Stephanie switched
the vidcomm to the back of the duck.

“Good afternoon passengers
of the S.S .Compromise,” she began. “I'll be your pilot for this trip. Please
make sure to fasten your safety harnesses and keep them on at all times. If you
need any refreshments, just page my copilot and he'll be happy to assist
you.  Otherwise we should arrive at New China as soon as we get
there.  Thanks again for your patronage.”

“Very nice,” John
complimented his daughter.

“Thank you,” she
nodded in reply with a smile.

John stretched his
arm to the cockpit door and closed it. He reached over to Stephanie and turned
her in his direction.  Pausing for a second, John quietly said,
“Stephanie, I want to make sure you know there is one reason you are sitting in
that chair.”

Stephanie worked
to control her reaction, unsure where her father was going with this.

“You’re sitting
there because you are simply the best pilot I’ve ever seen,” John said with a
simple honesty. “Every time I see you flying I can’t help feeling a sense of
pride.  There are so many paths you could have travelled.  I am so
happy you’ve chosen the one that has brought you to that chair.”

Leaning over, John
gave her a hug.  He then reached back over to the doorway and opened the
door.

“What’s that?”
John asked as he saw Stephanie attaching her Ksync to the dash.

Turning her Ksync slightly
so that her father could read the screen, she gave him a smile, “Just a little
driving music of course.”

John didn’t have
to read the song name that rolled across the Ksync’s screen.  An all too
familiar lyric filled the cockpit’s speakers, “All aboard, hahahahahaaa!” This
was followed by a deep bass striking a defining rhythm and the scratch of a
guitar.

John was about to
say something about focusing on the task, but caught himself.  He was not
only confident, but proud of his daughter’s skills.  Instead of a lesson,
he leaned back in his chair and listened to vintage Ozzy Osbourne.

Stephanie exhaled
and started the plasma engines.  Adjusting the hovering height on the duck
to match the railway, she timed the initial acceleration of the plane with the
kick of Randy Rhoads’ guitar. As the rift launched into its fast moving chords,
Stephanie gave a tap on the afterburners sending the duck flying down the
tracks.

After the burst of
g-forces from the afterburners had subsided, John reached down into his pack
and pulled out the Ksync given to him by the admiral.  He had been itching
to review the device since she had given it to him, but the opportunity hadn't
presented itself.  More importantly it would take his mind off his
daughter's flying.

Chapter 34   Crazy Train

The rail for the
high speed transport followed what was once called Valles
Marineris. The canyons that stretched for nearly a fifth of the planet were
filled with water, making it the largest inlet on Mars. From the Great Sea of
Mars, the rocky shores of the inlet transitioned into a tropical
rainforest.  As the inlet wound itself through the equator of the planet,
it stopped to form bodies large enough to be called seas.  Decades after
the terraforming of the planet, scientists had yet to re-name many parts of
Mars.  Instead, the original names were often used even if the context no
longer applied.

The
Compromise was like a sailboat "nicely making way" down its path.
Stephanie managed to keep the duck's average speed above eighty kilometers per
hour regardless of the twists and turns.  John had managed to keep the
number of times he cringed and warned Stephanie of a hazard to under ten.
It would have been closer to fifty if his eyes weren't stuck reading the
admiral's Ksync.

From
the small fraction he had read, the controversial reports would have caused
quite the stir back home. The Ksync outlined thousands of directives the MARC
program had issued since its conception. The directives were loosely organized
by stages of the MARC program.  John tried to get a quick overview, but
the scope of the information made it nearly impossible to grasp without
extensive research.  There were maps, diagrams, schematics, and an
absolutely daunting amount of theories to grasp.  The Ksync was the
admiral's personal encyclopedia of Mars. John salivated at the adventures
contained within its secret pages.  One thing was starting to take hold in
his mind, however, the implementation of the MARC program and the intentions of
his grandfather were not travelling down the same road any longer.

John
had begun skimming the terraforming stage when Stephanie's calls brought him
out of his reading trance.

“Commander,
we may have trouble,” Stephanie was repeating.

John
wasn't used to his daughter referring to him by his rank unless something was
very serious. He looked out the cockpit window across the inlet.  A
lightning storm raged across the waters ahead of them.  The blackness of
the clouds swallowed everything from the ground to the heavens. It reminded
John of the great dust storms that had swept across the plain states on Earth.
Unlike the dust storms, this one was filled with an electricity that arced in
all directions.

Pulling
up the vidcomm for the duck, John announced, “Everyone get strapped in, were in
for a bit of rough weather coming up.”

Next
John activated the small energizers that had helped the plane survive its epic
plummet to Mars.  He then turned his attention to helping his daughter
keep her cool under fire.

“The
Compromise has come away from a lot worse than a storm without a scratch,” he
related to Stephanie. “Just put on your lights and keep the nose pointed down
the trail. We'll be just fine.”

Stephanie
nodded but John could see that all the simulators in the world couldn't replace
real life.  The vidcomm signaled a page from the back compartment. John
flicked it on.

“Hi
Daddy,” Jessica came across the screen with a greeting.  “What kind of
storm do we have?  Is it a tornado or a hurricane?”

John
smiled back to his youngest and said, “Just a little storm with some lightning,
that's all. We'll get through it just fine and keep on going don't you worry.”

“Okay,
let me know if you see a tornado though,” Jessica added. “I want to see one of
those.”

“We're
going to try to steer clear of anything like that, but I'll take a vid of it if
we see one,” John told her.  “I have to go now, Jess, we have to look
sharp up here.”

“OK,
love you,” Jessica told him and then signed off of the vidcomm.

“Take
the kids along, have a good time, it'll be a vacation,” John muttered sarcastically,
recalling the compromise conversation. “Thanks, Captain.”

“What
was that?” Stephanie asked.

“Oh
nothing, I’ve just realized how much I was bamboozled,” John replied as he
brought up the duck's scanners.

The
storm ahead was roughly two hundred kilometers in diameter and was growing in
intensity as it sucked up moisture from the inlet.  Wind speeds were
reaching one hundred fifty kilometers per hour in several parts of the
storm.  John wasn't a weather expert by any means, but this was an odd looking
thing. The plane raced along the rail, keeping inside the bars that would guide
a transport. As the storm finally hit them, Stephanie had to fight with the
controls to keep the duck on course.

The
initial wind shear jolted the plane, but after several seconds they decreased
to random bumps and bangs. The light show offered by the storm was spectacular.
John had to close the window due to the blinding lights flashing more than a
room full of paparazzi. As a result, Stephanie navigated exclusively with the
vidscreen.

“Just
like the simulators back home in D.C.,” Stephanie remarked regarding the
vidscreen.  A smile returned to her face as the familiarity relaxed her
nerves.

A loud
crack filled their eardrums as the vidcomm screen flashed pure white. The
controls froze.   Stephanie lost all control of the duck as it ran
off the rail.  Crashing through the jungle it smashed trees and shook with
each impact. Yells to "hold on" and cries of shock echoed through the
plane as it violently decelerated.  The duck came to rest on its
belly.  A path of destruction through the jungle lay hidden by the
darkness.

Holding
a PhD in crashing, John was able to shake off the shock quickly.

“Stephanie,”
he patted his daughter's arm, “you okay?”

“Yeah,
I think so,” she replied.

Pulling
off his harness, John moved to the back of the plane to check on his family and
friends. He surveyed the compartments and crew members. Both were shaken up,
yet everything was in one piece. Meanwhile, Stephanie tried unsuccessfully to
reboot the engine and navigation systems. Internal systems were online,
however, so she paged the passenger compartment over the vidcomm.

“How's
everyone back there?” she asked.

Glennay
gave her a thumbs-up.

“I may
need a good masseuse after this, but everyone looks OK,” Glennay informed her.

“Good,”
Stephanie replied. “I'm coming back there.”

Having
rearranged the jumbled supplies, the crew of the S.S. Compromise squeezed into
the main compartment of the duck.

“How
do we know where we are?” asked Kyle. “It's not like we're going to open up a
hatch and peek out, not with that lightning.”

“Good
question,” John confirmed. “We're likely knee deep in fallen trees, a
half-kilometer or more off track.   The good news is we're not
moving, so wherever we landed it must be stable.”

“We've
internal power then?” asked Glennay.

“From
what I could tell, the internal systems were all online,” Stephanie answered.
“The external systems, engines, sensors, etcetera were all offline.”

“We
must have been hit by lightning like no other,” Ashley chimed in. “The duck's
shielding kept the internal systems on, but an ordinary lightning strike
couldn't have taken out the externals.”

John
wanted to pace and think, but there wasn't any room.

“The
last I saw of the storm data, it was moving pretty fast and it wasn't that
large,” John added to the conversation. “I think if we hang tight for an hour
at most it should blow by us.”

“I can
still hear the pounding,” Jessica said curled up next to Ashley.

“That's
a good thing Jess,” John tried to put a spin on the noise. “We can use the
pounding to know when the storm has passed.”

John
gave the crate next to him a good pat and said, “Let's put this time to
use.  Double check the supplies and get any loose items secure.
After that, we have power so let's eat!”

The
crew seemed to buy into John's plan, anything to take their minds off the
pounding noise from outside.  It helped that lunch had been several hours
ago, and they needed a break.

#

Roughly
an hour had passed before the sounds of thunder faded. Jessica took it upon
herself to make sure the crew noticed.

“Eight
o'clock and all's well!” Jessica announced in various compartments of the
plane.

John
had been reading more from the admiral's Ksync when Jessica popped up front.

“You’re
a first class watchman,” he told Jessica as he gave her a quick hug.

Glancing
over at Stephanie, who was still sitting in the pilot's seat, John asked, “Any
luck on the system diagnostics?”

“We’re
going to have to complete the analysis from outside I'm afraid,” Stephanie reported.
“I can tell what systems aren't communicating to the interior, but not what's
wrong with them from here.”

“Okay
then,” John replied as he headed to the back of the duck. “It's time the techs
earned their pay.”

The
MARC mission was timed to give the colonists the maximum amount of “summer”
weather possible.  Since a Martian year is almost double that of Earth's,
this meant the colonists would have roughly five months of summer (and then
need to endure five months of winter later on).   The majority of the
colonists also planned to settle around the equator providing for the most even
distribution of daylight. A Martian day was almost identical to an Earth day.
Mars spins slightly slower creating a slightly longer day. By eight o'clock,
however, the Sun had set along the equator and nightfall had taken hold.

“Well
the good news,” John began, “is that our chief watchman has announced the
lightning has stopped.  The bad news is that it's dark out there now and
we need to find out what kind of spot we're in.”

“I'll
round up some lights,” Glennay pitched in.

“And
I'll work on setting up a defensive perimeter,” Kyle jumped in as well.

“Sounds
good,” John agreed. “Tyler and Ashley, you want to get out your stethoscope and
some Band-Aids? We need to find out what's wrong with our duck and fix it.”

“Right
mate,” Tyler confirmed before heading off to gather his gear.

“Jessica,
I want you to keep Stephanie company in the cockpit,” John encouraged his
youngest. “If we get the scanners up and running, then she'll need your eagle
eyes to see what's out there.”

Jessica
gave her father a salute and ran up to the cockpit area.  John looked
around the area that was once crammed full of people.  With everyone
scattered throughout the duck he suddenly felt alone.  He eyed the weapons
locker that was on the wall beside him.  Entering the security code to the
locker, he reached in and pulled out a plasma rife. With a fluid motion he
slung the rifle around his back.

“Just
in case the natives aren't friendly,” he told himself. “Better paranoid than
sorry, like my training sergeant used to say.”

Chapter 35   In Search Of

Lieutenant
Jennings had set up a defensive parameter around The Compromise as they were
still calling the plane.  At the same time, Lieutenant Mercedes had rigged
a series of lights around the duck to spot damage and rig repairs. Ashley and
Tyler were standing platforms that extended from the duck.  The built in
supports glided over the plane in every direction, allowing the techs to assess
damage with ease.

“Our
main power converter was blown clean off the duck,” Ashley yelled down to John.
“That would have taken a heck of a punch to knock it off.”

Glennay
overheard them talking and joined in, “We can try to get a message out, but
it's going to be a long time before anyone can get to us.”

John
thought a moment about their situation.

“Can
you fix it?” John yelled up to Ashley.

“If
you can find the converter, we might be able to.”

John
shined his Ksync's spotlight behind the duck revealing an endless path of broken
trees.

“Tracking
through a Martian jungle in the dead of night sounds like something out of a
B-horror movie,” John joked.

“Do I
want to know what you're talking about?” Ashley questioned John.

“I
doubt it's your cup of tea,” he replied. “Let's do a thorough once over and
call it a night.  It looks like we’re sitting in a safe enough spot, and
I'd rather trek around during the daytime.”

The
crew completed their assessments and retired to the duck for the evening. Tyler
was the surprise entertainment of the evening with his “Songs of the Outback”.
They turned out to be a strange combination of singing, drumming, and bad jokes
laced in between choruses. By the end of the evening anyone with a hint of
musical talent was joining in, playing a real or fashioned instrument.

John
had joined the group, but he resisted the calls for him to join in with his
guitar. Instead he listened to the group's antics while he continued to read
from his newly acquired Ksync. At one point between songs he leaned forward and
called to the group.

“Hold
up a second,” John asked them to pause, “I want to show you something.”

John
synched his device to the vidcomm in the room.  He pulled up what looked
like a map on the Ksync and displayed it over the vidcomm so everyone could see.

“What's
this,” Ashley inquired as he zoomed in on the map.

John
pointed at the vidcomm and said, “This is a map of Mars back in early stages of
the MARC program. This is way back before the ecosystems were fully developed,
but after the construction of the dome cities.”

Tracing
his finger along a trench he continued, “This is the inlet of water we've been
following. Before the great rainstorms, Valles Marineris was a gigantic version
of the Grand Canyon.”

John
tapped several points on the map as he outlined. “At these points on Mars, the
dome cities constructed several weather stations and outposts.  These
small facilities were manned by MARC scientists who were working to develop the
atmosphere and ecology of the planet.”

Jessica
stirred in her seat a bit and spoke up, “Do you miss being a history teacher,
Dad?”

John,
caught a bit off guard, stopped, smiled, and continued, “A bit. But what I'm
getting at is... look here on the map.”

He
zoomed in the screen on the vidcomm and then brought up two flashing points.

“This
is our position,” John said as he pointed at the red flashing point. “And this
is where a MARC outpost was built.” John pointed to the blue flashing point.

“We're
less than ten kilometers from that outpost,” John concluded. “Worst case
scenario, we can take the ATV to the outpost and look for parts.  There's
likely some sort of power converter we can salvage from there, something to get
us up and running.”

“Sounds
like a good plan B,” Kyle threw in his two cents. “If we can't recover our own
converter from the trail we left behind, then that sounds like a good backup.”

“Agreed,”
Ashley said.

“OK,
then we have it,” John disconnected his Ksync.  “One more song for the
road and then let's hit the sack.”

#

Everyone
was up early the next morning.  A combination of anticipation and sparse
sleeping areas made for a quick start.  The whole group made their way
outside the duck to stretch their legs.  They were greeted by a wave of
humidity and smells the likes of which they hadn't experienced in a long
time... if ever.

“It’s
like we're camping in the middle of skyscrapers,” Stephanie exclaimed.
“The trunks on the trees stretch up so high. How tall do you think they grow?”

“On
Earth the giants could grow up to eighty meters tall,” Ashley answered her question.
“On Mars, with the reduced gravity, they can go even higher.”

“If
you look at the ones we knocked down, I'd say they're at least 60 meters or
more in length,” Kyle added. “That duck was built to last that's for sure.”

John
looked down the lane of fallen trees stretching into the distance.

“Kyle
and I are going to find our missing parts,” John announced. “Stick to The
Compromise and try to stay out of trouble.”  John leaned over and
touched Jessica's nose. “In your case that goes double; once for you and once
for Wispy.”

Jessica
poked her father back, reaching his ribs with her finger, then ran away.

The
two sentinels walked beside the fallen tree line. They found it was far easier
to walk under the relatively clear ground of the standing trees, then along the
fallen trunks.  The floor of the forest was surprisingly clear of brush or
vines.  The light necessary to sustain life had been blocked by foliage
farther up in the canopy.

“It's
amazing how tall these trees have grown in such a relatively short time,” John
commented.  “They must have put some serious fertilizer in the mix when
they were seeding the planet.”

Kyle
nodded. “There's this weird sort of background noise too. Not anything specific
but you can almost feel the noise.”

“I
thought that was just my headache from the crash,” John laughed.

The
men continued walking for a quarter hour before reaching the rail.

“What's
that?” Kyle asked as he pointed to a small tower right next to the rail.

“That
my friend is one of the plasma stations that sends the transports racing down
the track,” John replied.  “It looks like the top of it has been blown
clean off.”

Both
men scoured the area around the rail looking for any sign of the power
converter.

“I'm
going to wager,” John surmised, “that one of those lightning strikes hit the
plasma station as we were passing by.  The blast must have blown us right
off the track and likely blew our power converter into bits.”

“That's
a heck of a lot of bad luck,” Kyle replied.

“Apparently
Murphy's law and Newton's laws both work on Mars,” John agreed.

“Well,
Watson, that was a wonderful morning stroll, shall we head back?” John asked
Kyle.

“Quite
right Holmes,” Kyle replied, recalling the reference to the great detective
stories. “Let us not tarry.”

#

Jessica
tried to talk Stephanie into playing hide and go seek, but of course her sister
was too “busy” for games. As always, Wispy was up for a game or two and as it
turns out was an expert hider to boot. Jessica looked all around the duck
trying to find Wispy.  Of course, the tiny companion was using its
hovering ability to its advantage.  Jessica looked everywhere but one
place... up. Wispy simply hovered silently above her as she wondered to and
fro.

Not
being one to give up easily, Jessica took it upon herself to extend the
search.  A few steps outside the perimeter she noticed a beam of light
flashing on her shirt. Looking right and left, she identified the
culprit.  The light was shining from the machines Lieutenant Kyle had put
up around the duck.

Jessica
convinced herself, "I'm not supposed to go past the light, but Wispy
doesn't know that. The silly goose must be hiding somewhere behind a
tree.  After all, everyone knows you hide behind a tree when playing hide
and seek."

As
Jessica made it to the tree line, she heard Wispy's familiar beeps above her.
Sure enough, she looked up and saw Wispy floating above her flashing all sorts
of colors and making wacky whirs.  It wasn't the sight of Wispy though
that caught her attention.  Up the trunk of the tree she saw what looked
to be a young boy or girl about her age.  The kid was somehow hanging onto
the trunk of the tree at least twenty to thirty meters up in the air.
Wispy floated down to Jessica's side.  She couldn't believe how someone
could climb so far up in the tree without help. She wasn't sure what to do.
Then it came to her.

“Hi
there!” Jessica said as she waved to the young teen.

If she
hadn't been amazed at first, she was now as the boy opened up a pair of wings
and glided toward her. He circled the tree as he descended and landed a few
meters from Jessica. His wings folded up behind his back making his movements
more natural.

The
boy's dress was odd to say the least.  He was covered by a strange
combination of feathers and clothing.  Both seemed to wrap together as
though tailored for each other’s needs. His legs and waist were slender, but
his upper body was fantastically muscled.  She had never seen anyone like
him.

“My
name is Jessica,” she said to the boy.

He
cocked his head a bit and then replied with something that could only be
described as a peculiar kind of song.   Unlike a song, however, the
vocals were broken up into parts, as though he were trying to sing words.
He gave Jessica what looked to be a smile and then took a woven cord from
around his neck.  Dangling from it, was a shining stone, much like the one
she had been given by the nice admiral on the space station.  He held the
cord out toward Jessica as if to offer it to her.  Jessica giggled a bit
and took the necklace.  It occurred to her to reciprocate the boy’s
gesture. She pulled the Admiral's gift from around her neck and handed it
toward the boy.  He took it and placed it around his neck.

“Jessica!”
a voice sounding like her mother's called from duck.  In the clearing several
people were spreading out and calling her name.

The
boy caught sight of the adults and took a couple of cautious steps
backward.  Jessica noticed the sharp nails on his feet that allowed him to
cling to the tree above.

“It's
OK,” Jessica said. “They're my friends and my mother.  They won't...”

But
before she could finish, the boy leapt into the trees and spreading his wings
soared into the branches above.  Within a few seconds, he was completely
out of sight.

Catching
sight of Wispy and Jessica, Ashley jogged over to her.

“Jessica,”
Ashley said, slightly winded. “You're out of bounds girl. You and your
trouble-making sidekick need to get back over to the duck.”

“Okay
Mom,” Jessica replied. “Mom?” Jessica thought to ask.

“Yes?”
Ashley replied.

“Did
you see the boy I was talking with?” Jessica asked.

“A
boy?” Ashley questioned.

“Yes,
he flew down to say hi to me,” Jessica continued. “I was starting to talk with
him but then he saw you and flew away.”

Ashley
felt Jessica's head.

“You're
not running a fever,” Ashley told her.

“I'm
not sick mom,” Jessica replied. “See.” Jessica took the cord out from under her
shirt with the shining stone.

“Yes,
Dear,” Ashley said, “that was a great gift from the admiral, cherish it
forever.”

“It's
not the same one,” Jessica countered.

“Sure
it is…” Ashley stopped mid-sentence. Looking closely at the cord and then at
the stone, she seemed to ponder the discrepancies for a moment.

“You
had a metal necklace running through your stones not cord,” Ashley remarked,
“and this is just one stone. Where are the others?”

“I
told you, Mom,” Jessica replied with more energy. “I traded my necklace to the
boy with wings.”

Ashley
stood in place for a moment unsure of what to think.

Chapter 36   Trick or Treet

The
ATV stopped at the location of the MARC outpost on the nav system. It was hard
to confirm the location due to the extremely low light of the forest
floor.  John, Kyle, Tyler and Glennay swung their way out of the tight
compartment.

“Who's
idea was it to fit four people into a three-seater?” Glennay scoffed as she
stretched her back.

John
switched on the flood lights from the ATV, driving back the darkness. An odd
looking construction stood before the colonists. A metallic building, worn,
battered, but clearly man-made was engulfed by a giant tree.  The tree and
a host of vines had apparently grown around, and in some cases through, the old
building.  It towered up into the canopy, dwarfing the surrounding trees
in bulk.

Not
sure how to take his daughter's claim of meeting a native, John made sure the
four of them packed away some “peace of mind". In this case three pulse
rifles, a pulse pistol and several stun grenades. Reaching into the cargo hold,
each of them strapped on a weapon and took at least one grenade.

The four
of them attached their Ksyncs to their belts and then activated them to light
the way. As they approached the vine-wrapped building, a large set of doors was
discernible through the foliage.

“Looks
like their blast doors are closed,” Tyler observed.

John
dimmed the lights on this Ksync and then brought its screen up to view.

“I
tried researching these outposts in the admiral's files,” John explained, “but
the primary files were labeled as archived and unrecoverable.  The
overview said something about the outpost program being shut down shortly after
the planet's bio programs were put in place.”

John
tried to pull up another file he had stumbled on while thumbing through the
Ksync.

“Now,
there's no way that this should work,” John said, “but I happened upon the
admiral's planetary pass codes and with them all the previously cancelled ones
from her superiors.”

“You
just 'happened' upon them?” asked Glennay sarcastically.

“Well,”
John replied, “truth be told, I've heard rumors of these command grade skeleton
keys for a while now. It may have been one of the first things I looked for in
her Ksync.”

John
gave Glennay a guilty wink. He then stepped up to the sealed blast doors.
Holding up the Ksync to the blast doors, he set the device to fire all known
pass-codes.  The screen of the Ksync displayed a timeline of codes with a
bar that filled as each year’s worth of codes were sent out in milliseconds.

The
Ksync stopped and flashed on a single code.  As it did, the blast doors in
front of the group let out a burst of air.  The doors squeaked in protest
ripping apart the vines struggling to keep them shut.  After thirty
seconds, the doors were open.

The
lights of the Ksyncs revealed part of a large bay.  It was filled with
dust covered machines of all types.  There was a range of vehicles
including some with old-fashioned tank treads on them and others with giant
knobby wheels. The dust was so thick any markings in the room, on the machines,
or on the vehicles couldn't be read.

Scanning
the room's environment with his Ksync, John nodded in approval.

“It
just looks bad,” John informed his team. “Nothing toxic showing up but you
might choke on some dust balls.”

Kyle
slung his pulse rifle around, grabbing it with his left hand.  With his
right, he affixed his Ksync to the stock and set it to scan mode.

“Curiosity
killed the cat, but a little paranoia never hurt anyone, right mate?” Tyler
said to Kyle as he setup his own rifle.

“Age
before beauty,” Glennay remarked to John as she extended her hand toward the
entryway.

John
wasn't used to being hit with a cryptic movie reference before he could
deliver. He thought about firing back, but instead he kept his wits in the
search.

John
set his Ksync to a lantern setting illuminating as much of the bay as possible.
One by one they entered the building.

Tyler
stepped to one of the four wheeled vehicles.

“I've
seen pictures of my grandfather riding these around the outback,” he chuckled.

Kyle
nodded, “Yeah they ran on a refined oil called gasoline. I have an old gasoline
powered Ferrari bubble wrapped in my parent's garage back home--thing's worth a
small fortune.”

Tyler
knocked the dust off some rags. He then used them to clean off part of the four
wheeler.

“This
is the outpost alright,” Tyler confirmed. “There's the MARC symbol and
underneath it the designation for New China.”

“How
are we going to find anything useful in all this outdated junk?” Kyle asked in
dismay as he looked around the bay of antiques.

Glennay
was dusting off large consoles in a corner of the bay.

“We
start by looking for systems that were ahead of their time,” Glennay answered
his question. “Like these consoles. They’re really just a generation old
version of workstations.”

“That
they are,” Tyler concurred as he moved to join Glennay in dusting off the
consoles. “This tech is solid, built back in the days of microchips and
processors,” Tyler added.  “Hit one of these motherboards with a pulse
cannon and sure, you'll fry it up good...but swap in a new component or two and
your off and running.  Not like this Ksync tech, you hit it with a pulse
cannon and it all turns to goo.”

“So
can you salvage anything useful?” John asked the two techs.

“Depends,”
Glennay answered.

The
two of them began dismantling the consoles, devoting their attention to the
task over John's questions.

Meanwhile,
Kyle had found a doorway leading to a standard decontamination room.

“Looks
like I found the rest of this place,” he stated loudly enough to be heard
across the bay.

John
found his way over to Kyle and the two of them began to manually open the door.

“Why
didn't the 'open sesame' code work on this?” Kyle asked.

“Global
codes usually access primary systems of a MARC base,” John answered. “Interior
doors aren't on the list I guess.”

After
working up a bit of a sweat, the two men had managed to open the door wide
enough to slip past it. The door on the other side of the decontamination room
was already open, revealing a short corridor beyond it.

John
switched his Ksync's scanner over to comm.

“Tyler
and Glennay,” John paged them. “We're checking out another section of the
outpost.  Keep me updated.”

An
audio reply from Glennay came back over his Ksync. “Sounds good, looks like we
may have something here.  We'll keep you posted.”

The
short corridor ended with a typical base door, no access codes required.
John opened the door and looked in.  He had to switch his Ksync back over
to spotlight mode to get a good look.  This part of the outpost must have
been the personnel quarters, judging by beds, dressers, and bedding strewn about
the room.

Rising
up through the outpost was an invasive tree trunk surrounded by massive
vines.  The ceiling of the room was gone. In fact the entire roof of
building was broken open.  John's spotlight disappeared up the twisting
spiral of vines, leading into the canopy line above.

“Odd,”
Kyle surmised. “Those vines form a darn near perfect ramp up that tree.
That seems a bit too convenient for my tastes.”

Kyle
angled his light along the vine ramp as it went up into the canopy.

“Just
keep your peace of mind handy, and let's see where the beanstalk leads to,”
John stated.

Both
sentinels placed their rifles in combat position and slowly made their way over
to the ramp. Taking a hesitant first step, Kyle led the way up the ramp. The
stairway of vines wrapped its way around the great tree trunk.

“I
don't know about you, but I'd rather not fall through this thing and land on my
head,” Kyle remarked.

“You
jumped off a space-station in outer space and could be floating your way to
Jupiter right now, but climb up a few meters in a tree you're terrified,” John
poked fun at his friend.

Taking
his Ksync off his rifle, Kyle brought up the rope setting. Holding it next to
the tree, he fired a small pin into the tree which in turn expanded beneath the
bark.  He attached his Ksync to his belt once again.  A spider thin
cord dangled from the tree to his Ksync.

“After
you,” Kyle directed John. “If you fall, I might catch you.”

“You're
all heart,” John replied as he continued up the tree past Kyle.

Up
they went, climbing into the understory of the jungle. A few meters in, both
men began to cough a bit.

“What's
that awful smell?” Kyle asked.

“I
don't know, but it reeks whatever it is,” John replied.

The
ramp widened and appeared to transition into a plant, a colorful plant with
multiple dangling flowers. It wrapped itself along the tree much as the ramp
had.

The
reflexes of the two, combat trained, Sentinels were little match for the
deception of the Martian plant. The ramp flexed up and over the Sentinels,
attaching to the tree above them. It had trapped them in a pod. Luckily, the
MARC suits detected the lack of oxygen instantly sealing and covering their
heads with a transparent bubble.

Neither
man could move a muscle.  The cocoon like entrapment held them with an
incredible grip. Moreover, a thick green puss began to fill the cocoon.

John
read the tactical display across the face of his helmet.  Some sort of
acidic compound was eating away at his suit.  His breathing was elevated,
heart racing, and his mind was working on overdrive.

“Okay
John,” he told himself, “think your way out. Bring it down.”

He
couldn't get to his Ksync.  He held a pulse rifle in his hand, but he
couldn't force his finger to the firing pin. The MARC suit was ticking off
seconds until suit integrity would be compromised.

He did
it again. He almost did it again, totally forgetting his ace card.  His
neuroband had become a pencil behind an ear or a pair of glasses left on top of
a head.  If he wanted to use his neuroband, then he needed a target.
Unfortunately, he couldn't see anything. He thought about “ghosting” his way to
Glennay, but his pulse was racing so fast he couldn’t concentrate.

Hoping
on a wing and a prayer, John dug down inside and tried something new.  He
pictured himself trapped in the vines of the tree and then cast the image out
of his mind like a giant net.

Nothing.
He sensed nothing back.  He knew Kyle and Glennay hadn't been wearing
their bands.  Even if Ashley or Jessica were wearing one, they had no
point of reference and no way to reach him. It was a heck of way to go. Plant
food.

Just
then something pierced the cocoon he was trapped in. A section of it was ripped
off around him.  John could move his arms and legs again, but to where?
His suit was working to remove the slime covering him.  All he could see
was a blur that faded in an out of darkness as the lights from his Ksync began
to fail.

In
that moment his mind began to fail him. He wasn't sure what planet, or for that
matter what plane of existence he was on.  The outline of a winged angel filled
his vision.  As his helmet cleared John was certain he had been saved by
something ethereal.  The figure wrapped him with some sort of giant
leaf.  He then felt himself hoisted out of the cocoon and up the
tree.  His leafy harness was guiding him high up into the canopy.
Another bright light flashed like a strobe light beside him. Between the
flashes he saw the image of another person.

His
ride to the top came to an end. When the leaf released him, he rolled onto
something resembling a giant platform.  It was flat, but had the give of a
trampoline. He tried to stand, but his legs didn’t wish to cooperate.  A
flashing icon on his helmet’s visor explained his disorientation.  A toxin
was in his system, some form of anesthetic was putting him asleep.  He
retracted his helmet to get a fresh breath of air, but he could still smell a
horrible stench in his nose.

Chapter 37   Where Eagles Fly

His
eyes slowly opened, but his nose had already awoken to a host of sweet smelling
fruits. The smell was far better than the horrible stench earlier. John slowly
sat up. He was in a hut of sorts.  Much like the floor he rested on, it
was woven out of a variety of plant materials.  The shape reminded him of
an oblong igloo though it clearly wasn't made of snow.  The walls were
covered with a resin that smelled like rubber.

A
large wooden bowl was set in the middle of the room.  It was filled with a
strange variety of sweet smelling fruits. Some of them looked vaguely familiar;
others were unrecognizable.  He knew better than to take a bite of strange
food, but his body cried in hunger. It was as if something had drained every
last ounce of energy from him.  Rummaging through the variety of fruit, he
found something that smelled like pineapple.  He put his manners aside and
feasted on the fruit.  It was sickly sweet yet so delicious. He
immediately felt the sugar restoring his body’s energy.

John
tried standing, but he had to bend over as the hut's ceiling was low.  A
breeze passed through the opening of the hut making it obvious he wasn't
wearing his MARC suit anymore.  He was wrapped in a fabric of sorts though
he couldn't say what it was.  It was wrapped around him like a toga.

“I
don't think I've worn this since my academy days,” he joked to himself.

John
stepped out of the hut and stood up stretching his back.  He reached for
the hut as a stiff wind nearly blew him off his feet.  Regaining his
balance, he was able to take stock of his surroundings. The view was absolutely
amazing!  Scanning the horizon, John saw a string of huts across tiered
platforms. They rested at the very top of the forest's emergent layer.
Tree-tops swayed as far as the eye could see in all directions.  Trying to
establish his bearings on Mars, John saw the trees gave way to the inlet of
water they travelled along.

“Well
at least I know where I am,” he mused to himself. “Sort of.”

John
grabbed the hut again for support. His balance had left him.  Still
feeling the effects of his capture, John shook his head and rubbed his
eyes.  It was as though he had to reorient his sight. Rubbing his eyes
even more, John’s vision slowly returned.

Several
figures dropped from the sky. John shook his head, concerned his eyes were
playing tricks on him. If they weren't, then the only explanation he had left
was hallucination.  John's thoughts flashed back to his capture. Something
with wings had pulled him out of that plant trap.

He
strained his eyes, yet the people before him kept their wings. Two more of
these winged men glided to a landing on the platform. Once on the ground, their
wings tucked snugly behind them allowing their arms a slightly greater range of
motion.

The
group of...people, approached him.  They were dressed in an odd
combination of a wrap, much like his, and what looked to be their natural
feathers.  All of them wore a cord of jewels around their neck.  The
shimmering jewels reminded John of the necklace the admiral had presented
Jessica.  The man leading the group easily had the greatest number of
stones, but their colors were muted. They made him appear elderly compared to
the rest of the group. John wondered if any of these necklaces were
representative of rank or position.

The
elderly leader stepped forward and sang what might have been a greeting.
Though his speech was song-like in quality, it clearly was broken into
word-like parts.  John could only wave and offer a “hello”.

A
small boy came around from behind the men and stood next to the leader.
Reaching down to the boy, the leader gently removed the boy's necklace.
He extended the necklace toward John with one hand and pointed at the sky with
the other.  At the same time he made more of the song-words as though he
was asking a question.

John
nearly missed the fact this necklace was different than the others. It was made
of metal and the stones that hung upon it were different from theirs.
John took a step closer, making a closer examination of the necklace. Then it
started to make sense. Ashley had a video of Jessica's
"encounter".  It wasn't great quality, but it showed something
flying up into the trees. He had wrote it off as some sort of large bird, but
the story she relayed was very convincing.

“That's
Jessica's necklace,” John said to them.  “She told her mother a boy with
wings flew down and spoke with her.  She said something about trading
necklaces, but you know, how am I supposed to believe that? Sounds like crazy
talk, right? But then here you are,” John rambled a bit as he chuckled.
“I guess parents really do need to listen more.”

The
men made a strange squawking sound.  John hoped they were laughing along
with him. Then the leader pointed up at the sky again.

“Yes,
we're from the sky,” John agreed.  The leader stopped pointing at the sky.
It was clear that both sides of the conversation were lost in translation. For
a second, Even on the face of the avian, John recognized the facial expressions
of disappointment.   He placed the necklace back on the boy.
With a call of sorts from the leader, they took a jump into the air and flew
away.

“Hey,
hold up there!” John called out to no avail.

He
walked closer to the edge of the platform, holding onto the hut as he
went.  Looking down, he wondered how exactly he was going return to the
surface.  John decided to error on the side of caution and made his way
back to the middle of the platform.  He walked across the platform and
stepped up to another connecting one.  From inside the hut ahead, John
heard a snoring sound that was strangely comforting in its humanity.

“Stop
sleeping on the job,” John scolded Kyle as he wafted one of the stronger
smelling fruits over his nose.

Kyle
was lying on his back, dressed in the same kind of toga as John.  His
snoring ceased as he blinked his eyes and tried to sit up.

“Hey,
what in the heck?” Kyle sat up perplexed at the sight of John's dress.

“I'm
not the only one at the toga party,” John replied. “Take a look at yourself.”

Kyle
grabbed at the wrap he was wearing in disbelief.

“I'd
like to say we've made it past the pearly gates, but no such luck,” John
informed him. “I’ve gained a bit of heavenly insight though. Turns out I need
to be a better listener as I've been informed many a time in the past.”

“Stop speaking
Greek already, unless we've traveled back in time,” Kyle demanded.

“OK,
you want it, you got it,” John replied. “We're stuck on a giant platform, way
up at the top of the jungle, sitting in a hut made by bird people.”

Kyle
just starred at John.

“You
asked for it, sorry if your brain wasn't ready yet,” John finished.

John
suddenly reached up and felt his hair, “Yes!”

“And
they say being absent minded is a problem,” John said jokingly.  “They
left me my neuroband.  I guess they figured it was part of me since
everything else is gone.”

“It
probably smells like you by now as much as you wear it,” Kyle made a joke of
his own.

“That
must be how we're here,” John mused. “I was trying to call out for help with
the neuroband.  Wasn't quite the response I was expecting, but we're
alive.”

“My
brain hurts, and it's not from wearing this,” John added. “I don't think we
could go for coffee and donuts without running into an exploding volcano or a
rip in time.”

“You
wanted adventure my friend, you got it.” Kyle replied feeling more like
himself. “My head is pounding too, and I still have a disgusting taste in my
mouth from whatever that plant-thing gassed us with.”

“Well
if we could find our gear, that would be a good start,” John stated. “I don't
want to have to explain a toga party to Ashley after all.”

Kyle
smiled in agreement as he tried to stand up, but failed, hitting his head on
the roof.

“Watch
out for that roof,” John said.

“Thanks
for the warning buddy,” Kyle thanked him for nothing.

Both
men stepped out of the hut onto the platform outside.   They were
greeted by an overzealous fit of laughter, clearly coming from a woman who had
been waiting outside.

Bent
over at the waist and having a difficult time standing was a divine looking
woman. She wasn't dressed in wrap like theirs, but in an actual Greek looking
white toga. Her long hair, brushed aside by the stiff breeze, revealed a
glimpse of her tanned perfections.

Both
men looked at one another with raised eyebrows.

“Were
you saying something about dying and going to heaven?” Kyle asked under his
breath to John.

The
lady managed to compose herself. Whisking her hair back as she straightened,
they saw the face of a very beautiful woman.

John
took one look at her and froze.  They had caught each other’s eye and were
locked in a gaze.

She
seemed to glide over to John and said, “Laughter really is the best
medicine.”  Then moving even closer she waved her arms at their clothing
and added. “I mean, have you two seen yourselves?”

Taking
another step inside John's comfort zone, she spoke to him in a soft tone. “For
five years I tried to get you into one of these. If I had known you were going
to dress up on your own, then I wouldn’t have worked so hard.”

Kyle's
face contorted into a very puzzled look.

“Do
you know her?” he asked.

Recovering
from shock, John nodded.

“I
think we overshot heaven and went straight to hell,” John said plainly,
“because if she isn't a devil, then I don't know who is.”

#

Glennay
brushed the soot from her eyes and looked over to Tyler.  He was wedged
under the console, uttering a few curse words she knew and a few she didn't, as
he tried to get the converter free.

“Whatever
happened to the good ole days of 'Made in China'?” Tyler mumbled as another
part broke.

“All
these international console parts look good, but they've no soul,” he
complained.  “It's like the fourth version of 'We are the World' at
the Grammys.  Right in the middle of the song, the auto tune lost power
and you could hear their real voices. My Nanna was running around yelling 'stop
the noise' with her ears covered. It wasn’t pretty.”

Glennay's
Ksync was paging her to answer.  She took it off her belt and activated
it.

“Any
luck so far?” Ashley asked, checking in at the designated time.

Glennay
wiped her forehead and answered, “Tyler is close to pulling out ‘a perfectly
fine substitute’ for our power converter from a console we found.”

Standing
over the console, she wiped another streak of dust off her uniform and added,
“I've managed to pull some files off the drives here, but I'll need your code
breaking skills to read these. As for Kyle and John, actually, they've been
gone for a while.”

She
checked the time on her Ksync and said, “It's been a bit too long. They went
into the outpost to explore.  I'll check back with you in a few after
we've finished this and then we can grill them for playing around while we
worked.”

“Thanks
Glennay,” Ashley said with a bit of relief.  “They won't page me back
which isn't surprising at this point. Go ahead and send me those files so I can
put my mind on something else.”

Glennay
made a few swipes on her Ksync and informed Ashley, “OK, you have them. Good
luck.”

Several
groans, grunts, gaffes later, the two techs finished their tasks.

“That
should do it,” Tyler proclaimed. “The duck may move like a turtle, but this
converter should work.”

“Sounds
good,” Glennay affirmed. “I’m not a big fan of the jungle.”

“You
sure about that?” Tyler questioned her. “I'd make a pretty convincing Tarzan
and you could be Jane.”

“What
exactly are you suggesting?” she replied.

“I'm
merely stating that you have the qualifications for the part, don't go getting
your hopes up,” Tyler replied.  “Help me get this to the ATV and then
we'll roust those slackers from wherever they wandered.”

Glennay
eyed Tyler for a moment before grabbing onto the power converter.  They
each took an end of the machine and carried it outside.  Once they had
secured it to the top of the vehicle, Tyler took out his Ksync and paged the
sentinels.

“Okay
you bludgers, it's time to stop poking around and meet us at the ATV,” Tyler
said. He waited a few seconds and paged them again.

Glennay
looked at her Ksync and said, “I see their signal, let's find out where they're
hiding.”

“Right,”
Tyler agreed. “I'm getting a funny feeling about this, I don't think even John
would pull our leg for this long.”

Tyler
slung around his pulse rifle from his back and Glennay drew her pistol as the
two of them reentered the building.  They proceeded in the direction the
sentinels had delved from the main bay.  After a few minutes of looking
through adjoining areas, they found the great tree.

“The
Ksync says they're up there, seventy-five meters up,” Glennay informed Tyler as
she pointed through the hole in the ceiling.

“Now
how in the world did they get up there?” Tyler asked. “You'd need a lift pack
or some climbing gear to have a chance.”  Tyler circled the tree searching
for another way up.

“That's
a heck of a mushroom looking thing growing up there,” Tyler announced as he
pointed to a plant that had attached to the bark.

Glennay
yelled up the tree calling out to John and Kyle.  She heard only the
jungle noises seeping through the hole above.

“My
Ksync is saying the same thing,” Tyler said to Glennay. “They must have found
another room with a lift.”

Glennay
nodded and the two of them conducted another search for a way up.

“There's
not another hall or room of any sort here,” Glennay said winded from moving
wreckage.

“Not
even a bloody trap door or hidden lever,” Tyler added.  “They must have
just sprouted wings and flew up there.”

A page
from Ashley came across Glennay's Ksync.

“Hey
you guys,” she said over the comm. “The natives are getting restless and
hungry, pack it up and head back unless you want them marching to the outpost
on foot.”

Glennay
looked at Tyler not exactly sure what to report.

“Ashley,”
Glennay replied, “we haven't quite found the boys yet.”

After
a pause, Ashley inquired, “What does that mean?”

“Well...”
Glennay stammered.

Tyler
jumped in. “We're in a bit of a pickle here.  Seems they've gone climbing
up a tree without us and we can't find a way up.”

“They're
still not replying to me,” Ashley stated then added “up a tree? What do you
mean up a tree? Can you see them, talk to them?”

“Not
from here,” Tyler replied. “They're way up in the canopy somewhere.”

Ashley's
voice fluxed between frustration and concern. “Just get back here with the
power converter.  I have an idea.”

Chapter 38   EX-citing Clues

John
tried to disbelieve what he saw.

“Is
that any way to talk about your wife?” Elizabeth sarcastically prodded.

“Ex-wife,”
John corrected firmly.

Kyle
had stood confused for a time, but with this revelation he became very
animated.

“Whoa,
John,” Kyle interrupted, “this is your ex? This is Liz?”

The
woman turned in Kyle's direction and asked, “So John still talks about me?”

“Just
to warn off others,” John countered. “I have half a mind to arrest you here and
now.”

Elizabeth
shook her head slightly and replied, “Here I was hoping time may heal all
wounds.  Either way, I think you're a thousand kilometers or so out of
your jurisdiction.”

“Mars
is under MARC jurisdiction,” he replied.

“Spoken
like a true imperialist,” she countered.

Kyle
began to chuckle and said, “OK, you two don't have to convince me. I can tell
you've been married.”

On
cue, both shot Kyle a deadly look.

Ducking
their gaze, Kyle added, “Hey I'm sure it was wedded bliss...”He couldn't finish
as he laughed and choked at the same time.

“So
what cause are you backing these days Liz?” John questioned her. “Benevolent
dictator, Communist, or some other hokey cult?  Last time I saw you on a
vid feed, you were training 'freedom fighters' in the desert.”

John
could tell he had landed an effective swing.

Liz's
eyes narrowed as she took aim with a counter punch. "I've been fighting
for the people, John. I've been creating a place where commoners can survive
without fighting for scraps of food. What have you and your father
accomplished? All you've done is bleed every last coin from the people for your
fanciful MARC program. You think I'm the one living in a dream, well John,
you're the one living in LaLa Land."

By
this point Kyle had recovered sufficiently to chime in. Waving to his
surroundings he countered, "Have you seen this place? I'd rather live in
LaLa Land than in Crazy Town."

Liz
and John rolled their eyes in practiced synchronicity.

John
took advantage of the opportunity to change the subject. “And just how in the
world did you get out here?” he asked.

“How
above the world might be more accurate,” Liz replied. “Let's just say I had to
make an emergency landing from a ship. As it turns out, these people seem to
have a keen interest in things that drop out of the sky. After finding me, they
flew me to this quaint little village.”

Liz
stuck her arms straight out in jest. “Before you can arrest me, however, we're
going to need to get off this forsaken birds nest. These creatures have served
their purpose in rescuing me, but they cannot get it through their brains I
need to leave.”

Kyle
was ready to move on. “As much entertainment value as these stories hold, I
have to agree with her, John.  We lost a night somehow, I'm sure there are
some folks looking for us by now. We need to get back to the ATV.”

John
nodded his head and walked to the edge of the platform. From there he could see
two of the winged men working in the distance.  He focused his thoughts on
one of them and tried to project an image into its mind.  An image filled
with thought of returning to the ATV at the outpost.

He
could see the two of them take flight, but instead of flying toward him, they
flew off away.

“So
much for that,” John muttered.

“What'd
you do? Try to communicate with them?” Kyle asked pondering for a moment.

John
nodded.

“You're
going to need some corn feed for that I'm afraid,” Liz joined in.  “I've
been trying for hours to get them to understand.  They don't have the
sense for it.”

“Where
did they come from anyway?” asked Kyle.  “It's not like they were living
here before we terraformed the place.”

“Then
I suppose you have your answer,” Elizabeth replied being purposefully coy.

“Speaking
of impossibilities,” John started. “Just how is it that you look the same,
almost exactly the same, from twenty years ago?”

“Mars
is a planet full of wonders,” she replied, “and you're just a neophyte here. If
you help me get back to my people, perhaps I can share some of what I've
learned.”

John
turned to her with a look of genuine anger in his eyes.

“I
should abandon you here, just like you left us, fending for ourselves,” John
said in low seething tones. “But in the end, that's just one of many ways we
will always be different. I lend a helping hand, not let a hand go.”

Elizabeth's
lips pursed while she struggled to find the words to counter his accusations.
Without a word she chose to let it go.  A drop of moisture formed in the
corner of her eye. Thanks to her genetic disposition, it evaporated before
becoming a tear.

Their
arguing distracted them from the party of winged men flying in their
direction.  A keen observer would have identified it as the same group
that met John.  They landed near the three visitors and approached.
The leader once again held out the metal necklace and voiced his musical words.

This
time, however, John did not try to talk.  Instead he conjured a video in
his mind based on Jessica's retelling of her "encounter".  He
added her description of sights and sounds from that moment and sent them to
the winged man.

A look
of surprise, if such could be read, appeared in the leader's eyes.  He
again pointed toward the sky.  This time though, he held out the necklace
to John.  John took the necklace and closed his eyes.  He tried to
block out everything around him and hear the thoughts of this winged man.
The sounds of the wind, the rustling of the leaves, and the creaking of
the platform all disappeared. Even the tingling smells of sweet fruits cleared
from his nose.

His
surroundings were replaced with another time on the same platform.  In
this time, however, it was not John standing on the platform, but Admiral
Conrad.  She was several years younger than when they had met.  The
admiral was talking through her Ksync in the same vocal tones that the winged
man used.  After their conversation ended, the leader placed a metal band
with sparkling stones around her head.

John's
head pounded under the strain, breaking his concentration and returning him to
his current surroundings. He was left with a strong thought a name that stood
out in the songs. Peacemaker.

Coming
out of his fog and shaking his head, John groaned. “Sheesh, it had to be
vocals.  I play guitar for a reason you know.” John cleared his throat.

In a
mildly musical voice, John looked at the leader and sang the name given to the
admiral.

The
group responded energetically, with a clap of their hands and seemingly, their
wings.

Kyle
looked to John and said, “For a musical people they're sure appreciative of
your attempt to sing.”

“Not
everyone can be Sinatra,” John shot back.

Kyle
was about to respond in kind, but before he could, the leader sang out a loud
boisterous lyric. It was followed by a song that weaved through the
trees.  Within seconds, two dozen winged men and women flew to the
platform from every part of the surrounding canopy. The leader motioned toward
John, Kyle, and Liz.  He gave a command by song, and the winged people
gently picked them up. They were flown down into the canopy toward a lower
level of platforms.

They
landed on the largest platform in sight.  This one was more circular in
nature with a hollowed out center. Stadium style seating was ornately carved
around the center as though meant for a great gathering area.  The
perimeter of the area was marked by tall hollowed out logs. Much like Native
American totem poles, the logs were carved and shaped to form a variety of
designs.  What caught John's curiosity were the odd assortment of items
placed inside them.  The gear could not be manufactured by the winged
people. Its technological level was far superior to wooden huts and platforms.

The
three of them were herded down the stairs and into the open middle.  There
they were joined by the leader.  The remainder of the winged people
tightly packed themselves into the circular seating.

With a
low bass tone, they began to sing. One by one the richness of their voices
added to a song.  John's curiosity grabbed the better of him as he tapped
into his neuroband.  He recognized his skills were slowly building with
each use of the band.  John decided to give himself a test and hoped he
would pass.  He opened his mind to the song, listening to the thoughts of
each voice adding to the harmony.

Like a
dream taking shape, his mind transformed the notes of the song into a
movie.  Their thoughts transported him once again into the past.  He
saw the MARC outpost anew. Unlike today, the terrain was barren, and the
building stood upon the red rock of Mars.  People wearing full
environmental suits worked around the building. Then the scene shifted. The
great rains came forcing everyone inside the building. They ran to shelter in
terror. The drops of rain tore at the ground ripping apart the rock and turning
it into a muddy sea.  When the rains stopped, the sun appeared.
Another great storm came. This one, however, was a storm of dust and
seed.  The outpost was battered by the storm, but the people lived.

As
they left the building, sprouts of green thrust themselves from the red
soil.  The once barren rock exploded with an ecosystem of color. Shrubs
appeared, and then trees.  The people of the outpost smiled and played in
the rainforest.  They feasted on the fruits of the trees and grew their
own plants.

John's
consciousness felt the song change, matching the darker thoughts taking hold of
his mind. The people grew sick and some perished.  Those that survived
began to change with their environment loosing substantial amounts of body
mass.

The trees
grew to massive proportions. With the jungle came the insects, the Martian
locusts, ants, and beetles.  Something else came; strange beasts of
amazing build.  Some looked as though they had descended from Terran
animals, others were completely foreign.

As a
result, the people sought the protection of the trees and began living amongst
them.  Within weeks their bodies began to change. Some formed massive
muscular structures and wings. Others became larger, their entire bodies
adapting to the environment. Some people grew sleeker and moved with unmatched
grace.

Once
again the song’s feeling changed this time to angst.  Great battles took
place amongst the New Martians. They fought not as humans, but with a sense of
their new found heritage.  Great cat warriors hunted the winged people at
night.  The winged people hunted the cats through the jungle by day.

The
song changed yet again this time to hope.  Great lights came down from the
sky. People in massive metal flying ships swarmed into the forest.  A woman
led the sky warriors. She walked as they once had walked. She spoke as they
once had spoken.  In time she learned the new languages of the winged
people and the cats. From her words with them came peace, and the suffering
ended.

The
song was fading in intensity as it came to a close.  The leader of the
winged people gave the peacemaker a necklace of shimmering stones.
Gathered from the titanic mountains of the west, these stones glowed when held
close.  It was the greatest treasure they could give her for the great
gift she had given a people.

The
song ended.  John nearly collapsed on the floor, caught, as he fell, by
Kyle and Elizabeth.

He
regained consciousness several minutes later. The best he could tell, he was
propped up on a bench.  Elizabeth was wiping his forehead with some sort
of wet cloth and Kyle was running a med scan of him with his Ksync.

John
was confused, “Where did you get that Ksync?”

“Up
there from the hollow tubes,” Kyle replied. “What’s left of our weapons and
uniforms were bundled up in one of them too.”

John
struggled to get to his feet.  He tried to run up the stairs to the hollow
logs, faltering as he went.

“Hey
John!” Kyle yelled, “take it easy!”

John
ignored him and finally reached a hollow log. Pulling the equipment out of the
log, he haphazardly looked at each piece of gear.  Finally he pulled out a
uniform.  It was a MARC issue uniform, circa the establishment of the dome
cities. He sat down on the stairs half-collapsing again, but managing to catch
himself.

Still
holding the uniform, he held it up for Kyle to see.

“These
are people Kyle,” John tried to get out. “These are our people. They're from
the outpost.”

Kyle
clearly looked confused. “What do you mean? John look at them, there's no
way...”

John
reached into the hollow log and pulled out a pistol, interrupting Kyle. “So
where did they get these from?”

Kyle
jogged up the stairs. Reaching the top, he knelt down and looked at the pistol
he was holding.

“That’s
a GII standard issue MARC pistol,” he confirmed, drawing from his area of
expertise.  “They must have found it down in the outpost John and flew it
up here.”

“They
flew it up here alright,” John confirmed, “but they didn't find it.  This
weapon was issued to one of the winged people. Maybe even someone here who's still
alive.”

By
this time Elizabeth had walked up to them.

“You
discovered the truth to your first Martian mystery I see,” Elizabeth stated.

Kyle
looked at her in dismay.

“It's
okay, you're a warrior,” Liz spoke to Kyle as an adult would converse with a child.
“It's not for you to reason why."

“I'm
not some bone-headed grunt, Your Highness.” Kyle took offense to her remarks.
“I can add with my fingers and toes and everything.”

John
thought about breaking it up, but he didn't have the energy in him.  Kyle
could hold his own.  He looked through some of the items inside the
logs.  There was some old tech in there, but the winged people seemed to
have taken good care of it.

John
listened to them argue for long enough and was about to intervene when
something moving with incredible speed bounded by them. It lifted Elizabeth
clean off her feet. The creature was the size of a panther and moved like
one.  John, however, caught a glimpse of its eyes and his jaw dropped once
again.  This was no panther, it was a person from the winged people's
song.

The
man… panther… man… whichever, fired his powerful legs and jumped down the
platform with Elizabeth.  Meanwhile the residents burst into a cry of
alarm that carried through the trees.

“You
gotta be kidding me,” Kyle managed to get out.

Without
wasting the time to comment, John grabbed a lift pack that he had spied moments
before.  Strapping the pack around his back, he sprinted in the direction
they had left. He could only hope the integrity of its outdated fuel cells were
functional.

Kyle
looked around wondering what he should do then ran after all of them. Following
up from the rear were a pair of winged men. Kyle continued running toward the
edge of the platform, quickly running out of room.  Ahead of him, John had
fired his lift pack and jumped off the platform.

As he
reached the edge, Kyle stopped.  He didn't have the means to
continue.  What he did have was the Ksync he had retrieved from the hollow
logs. Kyle activated the scanner and locked it to John's position.

He
then sent an all call on the Ksync. “This is Lieutenant Jennings. If anyone
receives this, Commander Quinn needs emergency assistance.  I am
broadcasting his location, please assist if possible.”

#

The
closest experience John had with a lift pack was during his physical activities
class as a teenager.  They used something like it to play an adapted
version of American football.  John hoped he could use the pack like he
did as a linebacker.

He
couldn't see much through the vines and trees.  Thankfully the toga Liz
was wearing was designed to give off a muted glow in the dark.  It was
meant to add an angelic haze to those that observed her, but in this case it
made for a poor man's homing beacon.

As he
sped through and around the giant leafy plants of the canopy, John tried to
think of what he was going to do if he caught up to them.  He was still
holding the old pistol from the hollow logs, but it didn't have a stun
setting.  It had only one setting--shoot to kill.  His uniform could
have stunned the man, but it was lying in pieces back on the platform.

John
hoped he had another ace card up his sleeve.   He waited until he saw
a clearing ahead and then made his move. Composing an image of his first
meeting with the winged men proved difficult as he was dodging vines from
trees. He tried to capture how they smelled, what they wore, and how they
sounded.  Twisting the senses together he conjured up an image. He heaved
the image ahead of him like a mental net.

The
effect was immediate. The panther man dropped straight down to the forest floor
hoping to avoid his new captors.  John continued his pursuit projecting
his thoughts as he dove to the forest floor after them.  He knew the speed
of the chase would soon turn deadly for one of them.  Ahead a cluster of
trees gave John an idea. Pushing his mind to the limit, he dropped a projection
of winged men in front of the panther. The threat forced the panther to cut
left into the wooden dead end. As they landed, he turned and gave a screeching
hiss in all directions as if to warn off an advance.

John
fought to maintain the image he was projecting. He needed to know what the
kidnapper was thinking.  This was the proverbial corner he had backed the
man into. He didn't want to find what desperation could drive him to choose.
John tried, but couldn't communicate and maintain an image. He did pick up an
empathic list of feelings instead: jealousy, fear, pain, and anger came through
crystal clear.

John
backed the winged men off slowly.  At the same time he dropped his pistol,
hoping to show a sign of good faith (not that he was going to use it anyway.)
The man relaxed slightly buying John a moment to examine him in more
detail.  It was probably inaccurate to call the man a “panther”. He was,
however, covered head to toe with a short fur.  His muscles rippled all
over especially in his legs.  Unlike the winged men who wore layers of
clothes, his features were more distinctly animal in nature. This lent to the
minimalist approach of a loincloth and no more.

The
next move was made for them. Several nets fell from trees directly above
him.  The "real" winged men decided to try to capture the
panther man.  Although he deftly avoided the first two, the sheer number
of nets would defeat his most nimble moves. Thought the nets hit their mark,
both Liz and the kidnapper were tangled together.

John
let his mirage drop as he rushed to them. The winged men stopped hovering and
landed as though they would move in for the catch.  Motioning for them to
get back, John tried to keep the man in the netting calm. If he tried to shred
the netting, his claws could tear Liz to pieces.  Without having to split
his concentration on an image, John tried to communicate.  He was at a
loss, however, of what kind of image could possibly sooth him.

Through
the netting John caught of glimpse of Liz. Her eyes were trembling. Somehow
that look tapped into a passion he had locked away some time ago. If John was
to save her, he would have to place that feeling into the panther's heart.

Using
the last bit of mental energy he had left, John closed his eyes and sent his
memory to the man.  Classical music played in the background with a trio
of violins carrying a melodic tune.  A room full of people, all dressed in
their finest clothes, danced to the music.  Those who were sitting dined
at luxurious tables.  His father was one of those people, sitting next to
his mother. They seemed so happy back then.  If their happiness was echoed
anywhere else in the room, it was in the center of the floor where a young
couple danced.  She wore a stunning white gown, and he was dressed in a finely
tailored tuxedo.   As the couple spun their faces beamed of joy. For
that moment in time Jonathon Quinn and Elizabeth Quinn were happily wed. The
strain of projecting the memory left John barely aware of his
surroundings.  His exhaustion blinded him to the reality that he had sent
the memory to everyone in the gathering.

His
attention was broken by a crashing noise in his head that hit him harder and
harder with each crash. The last crash was so intense it felt as if the ground
was shaking.  Instead of his head bursting, however, The Compromise burst
through the treetops.  It splintered trees as it forced a path through to
the group and landed.  Its lights banished the darkness of the forest
floor, bringing even more sunlight through the opening it created.

Several
people exited the duck including Lieutenant Jennings. As they spread out with
weapons drawn, John saw the duck’s cockpit. Sitting in the pilot's seat was
Stephanie and bouncing up and down next to her was Jessica.  John smiled
at the sight of his children. He closed his eyes in exhaustion and collapsed as
his peaceful memory began to replay in his sleep.

Chapter 39   One Big and a Half Happy
Family

When
John opened his eyes, he was secured in a net. He was thankful it was the
safety netting of the navigator's chair in the duck.  He rubbed his eyes
to get the grime out of the corners.  It felt as though he had awoken from
an extremely long dream, yet he was supremely exhausted.  The window of
the duck was painted by the passing Martian landscape.  Water from the
great inlet rushed off to their south while they proceeded west down the
railway.

Stephanie
was munching on a strange looking banana as she piloted the duck down the rail
line. She noticed John had woken and offered him a bite of her banana too.

“This
banana is delish,” she commented. “Tastes like an orange and a banana mixed
together.”

John
shook his head, still trying to regain his faculties.

“That
was a heck of a dream,” John told Stephanie. “How long was I out?”

“Just
an hour or so,” she replied.

“You
wouldn't believe the crazy things this planet puts in your dreams,” John added,
“people flying around like birds and running around like cats.  Like
something out of an old science fiction movie.  I'm surprised Godzilla
hasn't made an appearance.”

“You
watched far too many movies in your grandfather's basement,” Elizabeth said as
she entered the cabin. She leaned into the cockpit and kissed Stephanie on the
head. The sight of his ex jolted John halfway out of his netting.
Luckily, or unluckily as he thought, the netting kept him inside the window.

“Oh
you're not really here. Oh jeeze, that wasn't a dream,” he said recoiling.

“Isn't
it great, Dad?” Stephanie remarked. “I can't believe you found mom out here in
the jungle.”

John's
eyebrows almost crossed as he bobbed his head with a smile, “Oh yeah, great.
Exactly what I was thinking.” He retracted the safety netting holding him into
the seat and motioned to Liz. “Can I see you for a second?”  He continued
to hold his fake all the way out of the cabin.

“What
in Jehoshaphat are you doing here!” he shouted in a whisper as they rounded
their way into an empty corner.

“You're
new on Mars and clearly need a tour guide,” she tried to say without laughing
too loud.

“Last
I saw you, I thought you were about to be clawed to pieces,” John related. “I
should have known you're harder to kill than a lungfish.”

“Au
contraire, Jonathon,” she replied with a suspicious gleam in her eyes. “You
chased after me when you could have left me to that animal. I think there's
still a part of us inside you,” she said twirling into him as though dancing.

Ashley walked
right past them and up to the cockpit.  John quickly pushed Liz off of him
as Ashley took a few steps backward to the corner.

“Perhaps I should
introduce you to my wife,” John said waving his hand toward Ashley.

“We've already
met,” Ashley said matter-of-factly.

John couldn't tell
from the inflection of her voice how upset Ashley might be. In all their years
together he had never heard that inflection before. He pondered trying to glean
an emotion from her with his neuroband, but quickly thought better of it.
Instead he did what awkward situations like this called for, he changed the
subject and prayed everyone changed right along with him.

“So we're back on
track,” John commented. “You were able to fix the external power?”

Ashley gave a
quick “Uh huh,” and then walked toward the back of the duck.

“Not
a good sign,” John thought to himself, “not the
worst sign either.”

John followed
behind her as did Elizabeth a few extra paces behind them.

In the main cargo
room the troops had gathered, and they were excitingly talking about their
latest adventure.  No more than a second after John entered the room, the
conversation volume dropped several decibels.

John picked up the
change in tone, but he continued along as if he didn't notice. Seeing Jessica
playing with Wispy in the back corner, he quietly made his way over to
her.  He bent down and tickled the back of her neck, predictably causing
her legs to buckle and fall, from which of course he caught her.

“You're still not
big enough to escape my tickling,” John told Jessica as he lifted her off the
ground and set her down again.

“Daddy, you're
awake,” she replied with a smile and a hug.

“Did you know that
you taught me a valuable lesson back there in the jungle?” he asked her.

“I taught you
something?” she replied with a questioning voice.

John put his nose
on her nose as he did when she was younger. It was like two rams
stubbornly butting noses to see who was ornerier.

“You taught me I
need to listen better to you and your sister,” he said with a fun-loving voice.

“Of course you do
silly,” Jessica replied. “We know lots of stuff.”

“You sure do,”
John agreed, “and I'm going to make sure everyone here knows it.  Take
Lieutenant Kyle there for instance.  I'm sure you know twice as much as he
does, three times on a Sunday.”

Kyle sat up and
gave her a small salute while agreeing. “I'm sure we'll all be taking orders
from you one day Jessica.  That's just the way of things.” He reached into
a large leg pocket on his spare uniform and pulled out a shiny necklace. “That
reminds me,” he added. “I think this belongs to you. A little boy made sure I
got it back.  I couldn't understand a lick he was saying, but I'm sure he
wanted you to have it.”

Jessica gave a
wide smile as she took the necklace from Kyle.  She turned to Glennay and
whispered, “He was so cute.”

John immediately
dropped to a knee and grabbed at his chest saying. “What was that? Cute?
I'm so old.  You know you've another thirty years until you can get
married, right?”

“That will put her
at forty,” Ashley joined in, her voice sounding more relaxed than before. “I
don't think you want to make a spinster out of her do you?”

“Well maybe
twenty-nine years then,” John corrected himself. “We wouldn't want that.”

Jessica tried to
poke John in the ribs as he parried her jabs with his hand.

She stopped her
play as she noticed Elizabeth standing in the doorway.

“Who's the
princess?” she said pointing in Liz’s direction apparently yet to be
introduced.

Tyler had
apparently missed the introductions too, murmuring under his breath, “Yeah
who's the chickie babe?”

John fumbled for a
second on what to say. Before he could find the words, Ashley stood up and
walked over to where Liz stood.

Looking
straight into her daughter’s eyes Ashley said, “Jessica, this is Stephanie's
mother.”

Jessica looked
confused saying, “Does that make her my step-mother? All the stories say that
step-mothers are old and mean, but she's pretty.”

Kyle about choked
on a bagel he was eating.  John turned away trying to keep his
composure.

That was going to
be a challenge as Glennay interjected, “Out of the mouth of babes...”

“Not every fairy
tale is true,” Elizabeth elaborated before more comments could be made.
She finished her sentence with a smile, a smile that only adults would
recognize as falsely dressed.  Elizabeth then walked toward Jessica with a
glide, bending over and offering her hand to her when she arrived.

“In my kingdom you
would be regarded a princess,” Elizabeth said with a soothing tone. “Your story
can come true.”

Glennay leaned
over to Tyler and whispered in his ear. “Please pick your jaw up from the floor
before I step on it.”

Tyler looked at
Glennay through the corner of his eye and began chewing again on his bagel.

“You seem like a
nice person,” Jessica confirmed. “Those stories are for little kids anyway.”

John having
finally decided on a course of action jumped into the scene.

“Okay girl, we
need to do some grown-up talk for our mission,” John relayed to Jessica. “Take
Wispy into the next room and play for a bit.”

“Do I have to?”
Jessica protested mildly. “I'm the only one who isn't a soldier around here.
Well, me and Wispy that is.”

“You’re not the
only one,” Elizabeth chimed in before John could reply. “We have some royal
matters to attend to you and I…and your Wispy friend there too.”

Jessica's eyes lit
up a bit. “Maybe we can see how Stephanie is doing.  Let's see if she
wants to be a princess too!" John didn't want to see the look on Ashley's
face, so he turned to the group for the answer to a question.

“So my murky
memory is failing me, I don't remember what happened back there,” John
stated.  “The duck crashed down by us, and Liz in the net with the panther
man. Somebody fill in the blanks.”

Glennay came in
from the sidelines to answer taking pity on John.

“Thanks to the
handy repairman of Oz, we were able to salvage a compatible power converter
from the outpost,” Glennay explained. “We went to find you and Kyle, but apparently
you two were already playing in the trees with your new friends.  So we
brought the converter back to the duck. With a lot of luck and a few temper
tantrums, from a person whose name starts with a T, we managed to get the duck
going.”

John gave Tyler an
affirmative pat on the shoulder from where he stood. “We didn't bring you along
for only comic relief you know.  Good show.”

Glennay continued,
“By then it was late into the night. We really didn't want to land on you with
the duck even if we could track your location.  It turns out that we were
testing out the duck's lifts when Kyle put out his all call over the
Ksync.  A few jumps and several stacks of firewood later we found
Kyle.  You should have heard him jabbering away about bird people going
after some cat.  We had no idea what he was talking about, but at least he
helped us zero in on your location.”

“To my defense,”
Kyle interrupted, “I was still feeling the effects of those toxic vines in my
system, and I think it made me ramble a bit.  It was either that or the
fruit I ate.”

“Or maybe you were
distracted by the breeze blowing up your arse with that Roman toga you had on,”
Tyler joined in.

Everyone laughed
at Tyler's brand of humor.

Glennay finished
her account. “So the bird people let the two of them out of the net.  The
cat person ran off by himself.  The woman, we now know as your ex, asked
to come along since we were heading to New China. Kyle's account of what
happened before the duck didn't make much sense. To be fair at the time he was
still acting like a lab rat on sugar pills.”

“What do you mean
acting?” Kyle questioned her.

“I'm sure nothing
but the best things,” John sidelined the comment before it could snowball from
there.

“So the winged
people just let him go?” John asked rhetorically.

“Oh and I started
to decode these files Glennay pulled from the outpost's consoles,” Ashley
added.  “So far the journal entries seem to be discussing the
implementation of some sort of biological plan.  It has to do with the
terraforming of Mars and creating the planet's biomes.”

“And I thought we
were busy on the Columbus,” John shook his head. “OK, this sounds like
something really important, but I’m not sure we can take another problem into
this raft without sinking.  We’ve overcome so much to get here…disabled
ships, space jumping, exploding space stations, and plummeting to Mars in a
duck. Now what do we have? People, who used to be our people, except now with
wings, flying around? We need to get focused on our objective, bringing Andreou
to justice. After that we can try to wrap our brains around the rest of this
crazy planet.”

John looked around
the room and seemed to have general consensus on the matter. He nodded and then
brought out his Ksync, drawing focus to finding Dominic.

“I was able to
find some old maps of the New China area on the Admiral's Ksync,” John informed
the crew.  “If we can cook up some sort of projector here, I'd like us to
look at it together.”

Tyler stood up as
constructing devices on the fly was his specialty.

“No biggie mate,
I'll have something pieced together in a couple minutes,” he said.

#

“You effortlessly
pilot this machine,” Liz complemented Stephanie. “It's as though you were born
to fly not be tied down.  I wonder who you inherited that from?” Liz
suggested with a small smile.

“I love it,”
Stephanie replied.  “Dad didn't want me being a pilot when I was younger,
but then he saw me too.  I think he was fighting the grandpa in him. By
the time I turned sixteen, he knew I wasn't giving up.  That's when
Captain Sterling sponsored me for the MARC academy.  She's amazing.”

Elizabeth absorbed
her daughter's words as she toyed with the cockpit's vidcomm.

“Can you turn this
on so we can listen to the cargo bay?” she asked Stephanie. “I'd like make sure
I don't miss anything. Maybe you can put the mic on mute, so that we can still
chat away?”

Stephanie swiped a
few controls on the vidcomm and said, “There ya go.”   She nervously
tapped the controls as though pondering a question.

“Mother,”
Stephanie summoned her best aristocratic voice, “where did you go after
leaving?”

Elizabeth tilted
her head and smiled, she had wondered how and when that question would come
about.

“Stephanie,” she
began while weaving Jessica's hair, “I'm like you though I don't fly machines.
I fly ideas.  And also like you, I need the freedom to fly.”

Elizabeth paused,
mentally taking notes of the other conversation heard across the vidcomm.

“For a time, I
thought I could keep my feet on the ground and stay in one place,” she
elaborated, “but I couldn't do it.  Even for something as precious as you
my child, I couldn't put my flying aside.”

Stephanie forced
back several tears as her mother spoke. An occasional drop slipped out
regardless of her efforts.

“I don't know how
I would stop flying,” Stephanie said. “But I don't know how I could leave
someone either, someone who needed their mom.”

So much for
sounding like an adult she thought to herself.

“She's here now,
Stephanie,” Jessica said as she moved to her sister and gave her a hug.

The tears that had
been held in check, now rolled freely from Stephanie.  She realized how
much her half-sister really meant to her even though they had always poked fun
at each other. In the end they supported one another.

Elizabeth felt her
own emotions swelling inside, but forced them down as she struggled to hear two
conversations at once.

“I can't explain
away those lost years Stephanie,” she told her daughter. “There's a city though
we're about to visit.  A place where you can live your dreams of flying,
I'll make sure of that.  And if you want to spend time with me there, I'd
love to watch over you again.”

Stephanie, reeled
in her emotions, agreed, “Okay.”

Jessica turned
back to Elizabeth, ready for the finishing touches of her braid.

“And you princess
are welcome to stay as are your parents,” Elizabeth said as she engaged Jessica
in conversation. “I have a question to ask about your father.  He’s
learned a few tricks of his own since I knew him.  What is this thing he
does with sending memories to your head?”

“That's the
NEUBI,” Jessica replied.

“Neuroband,”
Stephanie corrected.

“Yeah the
grown-ups have a better one called a Neuroband,” Jessica added. “It’s not
fair.”

“What is this
Neuroband?” Elizabeth asked, struggling to conceal her overwhelming interest in
the device.

“It lets you send
your thoughts to someone. Sometimes you can even trick them into believing
things are there when they're not,” Stephanie answered.

She glanced back
to make sure no one else was in the cockpit.

“I can use it to
focus my thoughts when I'm flying,” she elaborated.  “I'm not sure it was
meant to do that, but I found a way to make it work.  That's not something
dad needs to know about though.”

“Sounds like
something we can keep to ourselves,” Elizabeth assured her.

“So does everyone
have these then?” she followed up with another question.

“Nope,” Jessica
replied, “just some of us. Dad wants mom's invention to be a secret.”

“Oh, okay,”
Elizabeth said, “I'll make sure of that.”

Elizabeth heard a
name on the vidcomm that peaked her interest.  A discussion regarding New
China was turning heated.

“If you two lovely
princesses will excuse me, I need to make sure we have a chance to make it to
my fair city,” Elizabeth said giving both of them a kiss on their heads. She
nonchalantly turned off the vidcomm on her way out.

“Sure mom,”
Stephanie replied. “Come right back.”

Jessica hopped
into the Navigator's chair as Elizabeth left the room.

“Now I get the big
chair!” she exclaimed gleefully.

Chapter 40   EX Marks the Spot

“It looks like there
are several maintenance hatches we could reach,” Kyle commented as the group
looked over the admiral's map of New China.  “The only hitch will be the
access codes to get in.  Is it possible we could patch you in from a
distance Ashley and have you open them remotely?”

“If you can find a
way to interface your Ksync with those old doors, then yeah. I shouldn't have
much trouble bypassing their outdated security,” Ashley confidently replied.

Elizabeth slowly
walked into the bay area without being noticed.

“I have every
confidence in your technical skills,” Elizabeth joined the conversation to much
surprise.  “Though I'm afraid you won't have a chance to use them as
anyone approaching the city will be vaporized by the automated defense
systems.”

“And just how do
you know that?” John asked her.

“Well my general
was many things,” Liz paused, “but what he excelled at was killing people. A
useful trait for a warrior wouldn’t you say, John?”

John stirred as he
followed up with another question. “What do you mean ‘your general'?”

“Truth be told,”
Elizabeth said in a haughty tone, “New China has been reborn.  A new
leadership has risen from the ashes. A wise leadership that cares for the
people and people who care for their government. You will come to know it as
"The Order".  My general carefully set up the defenses that
would assure any outside interference from MARC would be in vain.”

“So this is your
work then?” John said accusingly. “The lack of communication, planes shot down,
transports malfunctioning, even the destruction of the MARC station?”

“I did not destroy
the MARC station,” Elizabeth was quick to defend.  “You can thank our
mutual "friend" for that.”

John didn't have
much room to pace in, but he tried the best he could.

“If you're calling
the shots in New China, what are you doing out here?” John asked. Changing his
line of questioning, he continued. “Did you plant yourself here?  Did you
know we were coming?”

The look on
Elizabeth's face darkened as she replied. “Dominic didn't just destroy your
beloved space-station. He killed my general, and he tried to kill me.  I
ended up in that god-forsaken tree hut trying to escape him. John, he left me
for dead and took my title. I knew he thirsted for power, but the coldness, the
calculated coldness that allowed him to take everything from me, that wasn't
the Dominic I knew.”

“Rising dictators
have a long standing tradition of killing their friends,” John replied.
“You should have studied history closer before playing a part in it.”

The rest of the
crew sat in shock as if the scene of Shakespearean tragedy was being played out
in front of them.

“Don't cast stones
of ignorance lest you hit yourself,” Elizabeth shot back.  “After all,
your great MARC organization funded every last screw in the Argo.”

Caught off guard
by her accusation, John paused leaving an opening for others to join the
discussion.

“You two aren't
the only ones having a bone to pick with Dominic,” Ashley added.  “It's a
long list.  Maybe we should start to figure out how we're going to find
him before this turns into an awkward situation.”

“So if you're in
charge of New China, this should be easy,” Kyle threw in.  “We just need
to show up and walk you back to whatever throne you have.  Then it's just
a matter of proclaiming 'off with his head.' See easy.”

“You missed the
part where I said the title I had was no longer mine,” Liz scolded Kyle. “And I
am only the leader of The Order, there are other members of the counsel. It's
not a dictatorship.”

“How did you get
stripped of your title then?” Glennay joined in with a question.

Elizabeth looked
over in Ashley's direction and replied. “I'm not entirely certain, but I think
it had to do with that headband you seem to have created.”

Ashley shot a look
at John, who shot a look back at her.

“You don't mean
Dominic had one of my neurobands,” Ashley questioned her voice filled with
grave concern.

Returning her
question with a piercing gaze, Elizabeth said, “That's exactly what I
mean.  You say I'm the devil, well he's the one controlling people and
bending thoughts around as he pleases.”

John leaned
against a bulkhead and shook his head while saying, “I need a vacation. This
whole scenario can't be happening.”

“I may
miscalculate at times in my efforts to put things in their place,” Elizabeth
stated, “but your MARC missions of self-proclaimed altruism have led to as much
suffering. You're the ones too self-absorbed to see the truth.”

As John was about
to bring another argument to bear, Tyler stood up and shouted, “Enough
already!  I can't take any more whining. You two can stand here and keep
blubbering accusations at one another or we can find a way to knock some skulls
around, starting with this Dominic yobbo.”

The room dropped
into silence.

John relaxed a bit
and stepped over to Tyler.

“Comic relief,
master mechanic, and now voice of reason,” John said in a calmer tone. “You are
a many layered onion, my friend.”

“Never been a big
fan of onions,” Tyler replied. “I fancy myself as a many layered Chiko roll.”

The crew laughed
in a collective release of stress from the situation.

Through the volume
of laughter, Kyle bent down to Glennay and asked, “What's a Chiko roll?” She
shrugged while continuing to smile.

Returning to the
holographic map of the domed city, John worked to get the discussion back on
track.

“We have a goal in
common having Dominic answer for his actions,” John summarized, looking in
Liz's direction. “If you have a way to get us to that access hatch without
being crispy fried, I'd be happy to hear it.”

Elizabeth moved to
the map and examined it closely.

“You won't reach
the maintenance hatches,” Elizabeth replied. “That's too obvious an entrance.
If we're going to get inside, we have to take a road less traveled.”

“So Mr. Frost,”
Kyle interjected hoping his literary reference would be noted. “We combed this
terrain for another way in. What's your grand plan?” Kyle interjected.
Before she could reply, he turned to Glennay and whispered, “Pretty good for a
grunt, huh? Yep, I read that poem.”

Glennay gave him a
small kick while whispering back. “Now we'll shoot for speaking with big
words.”

Elizabeth paid
little attention to Kyle's comment or the exchange of whispers.

“We're going to
have to go in underground,” she pointed toward the mining facility outside of
New China, “through the tunnels to the processing center. Ten kilometers stand
between the canyon's entrance to the processing center at New China.  The
mining facility wasn't equipped with a defense perimeter only the outskirts of
the city.”

John shifted and
enlarged the map to accentuate the mining facility.

Tyler scanned the
pictures of the lava tunnels on the screen and commented. “Those are larger
than the ones at Kazumura Cave in Hawaii.”

Several of the
crew stared in wonder at the tube system.

“Couple of
points,” John clarified. “One, you realize these tunnels run around active lava
flows and a bunch of other fun hazards. Two, you keep using the term 'we're'
going in.  I don't plan on taking anyone except Kyle into this place.”

Elizabeth cracked
half a smile as she replied, “Maybe a tactical team would work well, if you had
any idea where you were going.  Tell me, either of you pilot a mining sled
lately or anything close to it like a duck?”

“I pilot my roo
just fine,” Tyler announced. “I would have preferred to take her on this
journey if we hadn't been carting a mob around.”

“Ever pilot your
roo around something more deadly than a dust storm in the outback?” Liz
countered in a less than gracious tone. “These shuttles race around pools of
hot lava, exploding pockets of gas, and a host of things that routinely
interfere with getting our ore to processing. No offense, but we're going to
need a professional pilot on this, not an amateur.”

“You mean
Stephanie,” Ashley joined in the discussion. “You might as well request her by
name.” She turned her gaze from Liz to John and continued. “We're not talking
about a holo coaster here.”

John looked to
Elizabeth and asked. “Just who’s on your list of required personnel?”

“Stephanie is the
best pilot is she not?” Liz asked rhetorically. Looking at John she added. “You
of course would want to take custody of Dominic yourself.  And I'm the
only one here who has the contacts to restore my authority and to hand him over
to you.”

Ashley stood up,
taking the neuroband off her head and throwing it in her seat.

“A child wouldn't
need a NEUBI to see where you're headed with this plan,” she seethed. “We
should have let that thing claw you to death, the world would be a better
place.”  Ashley stormed out of the room and down the hall.

John shook his
head in disillusionment before following Ashley.  He caught up to her in a
side room sitting next to a crate of supplies.

“You know I didn't
cook that up right?” he asked.  “I fought tooth and nail in the first
place to run with Kyle alone.”

“That was before
the Nubian princess showed up,” Ashley replied.  “Even Jess is captivated
by her. I'm supposed to let you zoom off to her palace together.  You have
to see it, John don't you?”

John lightly
hammered the wall with the side of his hand as he tried to find the right words
to use.

“The last time I
saw her was on a counter-terrorist spy cam back on Earth,” John started to
explain. “She was helping to run some revolutionary group that didn't go
anywhere.  Ashley, she gave up on us to go after her own dreams.  The
last thing in this world that I'm going to do is follow her cult of personality
again.  Heck, I thought I was putting two hundred thousand kilometers
between us by traveling to Mars.  That's not something a person does if
they want a second chance relationship.”

Ashley rushed over
to John and embraced him, tears rolling from her cheeks.

“You better
remember those words if you go off with that crazy woman,” she fought through
the emotion, “and remember this too.”  Ashley looked up and gave him a
passionate kiss.

John thought twice
before making a sarcastic remark about her new-found romanticism.

“Too soon for a
joke about this?” he asked.

“Too soon unless
you want an elbow in your ribs,” she replied.

“Okay then, see
I'm getting wiser as I get older,” he remarked.

“Let's hope so.”

Chapter 41  Mine all Mine

Dominic paced down
the row of empty council chairs. Reaching the middle chair, he sank into the
high backed council seat.  Days ago, eleven members of O-Sophia’s council
sat in discussion and debate of daily law in these very chairs. From hence
forward, only the O-Arete need grace these chambers.

At first Dominic
was concerned with the unexpected and haphazard advancement of his time
table.  Now he relished in the brilliance of his impromptu plans. It was amazing
how such a little device, little wonderful device, could easily remove
the barriers to his advancement.  Dominic gently brushed his hand through
his hair, touching his neuroband, as if to gently massage his improved
creation.

A soft tone
sounded across the vidcomms of the council table. Dominic leaned forward and
answered the page.

“Even your witless
interruptions cannot spoil this moment, Captain,” Dominic addressed the
vidcomm. “Tell me, have the new workers been given their training sessions?”

The image of
Captain Dranius replied. “O-Arete, the chosen councilmen and their families
have been indoctrinated to the processing center as you wished.”

“Excellent,
Captain,” Dominic handed out a sparse word of praise. “The next project I have
for you will require a trusted group from the Argo. We need to identify the
transgressor of all the cities’ woes. The masses have only the capacity to
think post hoc ergo, propter hoc. After all, Captain, the culprit of the past
must be the culprit of the future.”

“My personal guard
stands ready for you command,” the captain recommended.

Dominic cupped his
chin with his hand while slowly dragging fingers across the top of his lips.
His trademark tell of deep thought.

“Is the MARC gear
we were issued at launch still stored away on the Argo?” he asked the captain.

“Yes it is
O-Arete,” the captain replied.

“Issue your
guardsmen a full set of such gear and send them to me,” Dominic ordered. He
gave himself a laugh with his own brand of humor. “If you haven’t heard, there
have been random acts of terrorism in the city.”

“Indeed, attacks?”
asked the captain.

“I’m surprised you
haven’t heard,” Dominic attempted to remain sincere, “vicious attacks by MARC
rebels.  They’ve claimed responsibility for the deaths of many innocent
civilians. Reports say they won’t stop until New China is returned to MARC
control.”

The captain,
grasping Dominic’s line of thought played along. “I can’t imagine the citizens
will be happy with the old MARC government trying to reclaim its imperialistic
dominance.”

“Nor I, Captain,”
Dominic agreed. “My informants say there might even be another attack
soon.  Perhaps even in the short time it would take for your guard to
reach these chambers.”

“By the Order,”
the captain replied with a guarded smirk.

“By my Order,”
Dominic mused on his plan as he turned off the vidcomm.

#

The duck had long
since left the rails that would run straight to New China.  Instead,
Stephanie piloted the duck through the narrow canyon system that extended from
the great water inlet.  She cut and weaved the vehicle around the walls
with ease as though hoping for a greater challenge.

As The Compromise
rounded the bend in the canyon, John could see the mining facility ahead.
One of the first operations of the MARC program was to recoup some of the
enormous costs from funding the program. At the same time they needed to build
a case for additional funding.  This was accomplished by successful mining
operations at several sites on Mars.  The largest operation was near the
dome city of New China.

The nearby
volcanic mountains in this region of Mars created a vast repository of mineral
wealth.  The natural processes that created valuable ores deposits were in
abundance here.  Some of the lava tubes that once saw superheated molten
rock flow through them were now dormant.  Often these tubes led to a more
active flow, but were prized for their natural transportation network.

The MARC operation
transformed the network of lava tunnels into a functional method for
transporting raw ore back to the processing center of New China. The natural
environment often made working conditions for the miners extremely
hazardous.

Currently, the
transportation of ore was fully automated.  Only the mining process
remained a hybrid of miner and machine. The miners resided in an underground
complex. Originally, however, they manned the great mining machines above
ground. Years later, the abandoned machines stood like silent guardians over a
long forgotten temple.

Stephanie expertly
guided the duck to the landing area highlighted by the Nav Computer.

John gave her a
quick kiss on her head and praised her. “Perfect.”

The crew rolled
out of The Compromise via the cargo bay ramp.  Preparing for the mine trip
ahead of them, Stephanie and Elizabeth had put on MARC suits like the
commander's.  Stephanie seemed to adapt quickly to the new look, but
Elizabeth was clearly dissatisfied with the uniform. Having been cooped up for
several hours, everyone took a minute to stretch before unloading the necessary
gear.

“This looks a lot
different than the jungle,” Jessica stated simply.

The plains above
the canyons were a far cry from the moist tropical forest they had left
behind.  A dry air mixed with an unusual almond smell in their nostrils.
Though alien in nature, only Elizabeth seemed to pay notice to the particular
smell.

“I'm glad we
gathered up a gift pack of snacks before leaving,” Stephanie announced. “It
doesn't look like we're going to get any yummy ones around here.”

Elizabeth's ears
perked up at the mention of this. Rubbing her drying skin she asked, “You mean
fruits from the jungle? You have some stored?”

“Sure do,”
Stephanie smiled at her mother. “I'll grab you a banana-orange for the road.”

Elizabeth smiled
back at Stephanie, rubbing her shoulder before she darted off.

The rest of the
crew began unloading a few crates, but left the vast majority of supplies in
the duck.

“Let's go over
this one last time,” John said as he put the last box of equipment down.

The crew gathered
around the crates, some sitting and some standing, to hear the last briefing.

“Kyle, you're
going to set up a watch station here along with a defensive net,” John
instructed. “Anything within five clicks of here better have a bull's-eye
painted on its nose."

“On it,” he
replied.

Pointing at the duck,
John dropped the volume of his voice slightly while speaking to Jessica. “I
need your eagle eyes kiddo. Once we get inside the command station here, Tyler
is going to find a place for the duck to be my eyes in the sky.  I want
you to help him keep a good lookout on those screens for any bad guys coming
this way.  Think you can hold down the Navigator seat for me?”

Jessica pulled
Wispy over to her, stood up straight and saluted him. “Aye, Commander.”

John rubbed her
head and shifted his focus to the rest of the team.

“Once inside we
need to find an automated ore carrier we can modify,” he stated. “Tyler, I
think this is your area of expertise, so take point on this. Glennay and Ashley
will help you work that tech magic.”  The group nodded and grabbed their
gear.

“That leaves you
two,” John indicated to Elizabeth and Stephanie, who had just returned. “Hope
you like sardine style seating, I'm not sure how much room they're going to be
able to give us for the ride.  Steph, you run any lava tube courses in that
coaster sim of yours?”

She gave a
half-nod and a smile. “I asked mom to upgrade my neuroband.  With this I
can do donuts around anything down there.”

“I like the
confidence,” John reinforced, giving her a hand knock.

“Okay team, let's
do this,” he announced loudly. “I want Dominic sitting cuffed and stuffed in
the back of the duck by sundown. Let's make it happen.”

As Tyler started
out for The Compromise, John caught him by the shoulder.

“Make sure you get
the duck to a safe spot from here. I'm not putting my ten year old in an action
zone,” John directed him in a firm low tone.  “You should be able to go
stealth and keep a lookout from a distance.”

“You got it boss,”
Tyler replied as he headed back out.

John started
toward the nearby complex.  Ashley and Glennay were already hacking into
the external security system.

“How's it coming?”
John asked.

“There's recent
coding added into the outdated firmware,” Ashley replied.

“Nothing that took
your girl more than a minute to bypass,” Glennay chimed in.

“Just covering up
the mess and wrapping a little surprise for anyone that tries to override,”
Ashley added as she worked the computer screen.  “Okay, open sesame.”

The exterior doors
slid apart, revealing a large decontamination room.

“No worries,”
Ashley commented, “this room hasn't been activated in years, though I powered
it down anyway.”

Tyler, Jessica,
Stephanie, and Elizabeth joined the three of them, as did Wispy.

Ashley gave
Jessica a bit of a hug saying. “Keep these two out of trouble, alright?”

Jessica kissed her
mom and replied. “How about just Tyler? I don't think anyone can keep Wispy out
of trouble.”

“That'll have to
do,” Ashley agreed.

John gave Jessica
a quick hug as he looked in Tyler’s direction.

“Keep those eyes
sharp,” he told her. “Even someone that eats more carrots than a kangaroo can
miss a clever coyote.”

The two groups
separated with Tyler and Jessica boarding the duck while the remainder of the
group entered the complex.

“We'll need to get
to the ore carriers as quietly as possible,” Elizabeth indicated.
“Avoiding an encounter with the miners would be optimum.”

“And why is that?”
Ashley asked with more than a hint of emotion in her voice.

“They serve their
purpose well enough,” Elizabeth replied, “but these are not the circumstances
I'd want to be negotiating under.”

“Do they have a
leader?” John asked. “Would it be easier to have them help us get into New
China?”

“No, and no,” she
replied.  Elizabeth clearly did not wish to elaborate.  Speaking in a
hasty tone she added. “Just reach the carriers. Trust me on this.”

“Pull up your
maps,” John directed the group. “I'm not sure of the date on these, but it's
better than guessing the right direction.  The main tube should be down on
level five from what I'm seeing.”

The group took out
their Ksyncs and loaded the map John had sent them from the admiral's device.

“Looks like the
main control center is here at the end of the hall,” Ashley pointed out. “We'll
head back up there and see how much we can get online after we rig your
transport.”

“Sounds like a
plan,” John concurred.

Midway down the
corridor, an old fashioned industrial elevator was the primary means for
traveling downward.  Glennay looked at the controls and surmised the arrow
button would summon a transport. She pressed it.  Immediately following,
the grating sounds of an elevator rose from below. The doors slid open, and the
group entered the dusty elevator.

“Level five,”
Tyler said, hitting the lit button on the wall.  “Anyone
claustrophobic?  I guess we'll know soon enough.”

The elevator
dropped several dozen feet below ground before coming to a stop. The doors of
the car opened revealing a huge tunnel.  The symmetrical shape of the
tunnel suggested it was one of the lava tubes created ages ago.

Elizabeth pointed
along the floor of the tunnel where it met the wall.

“See that metal
tube,” she directed. “That tube runs the entire length of the underground
mines.  It joins and separates as it winds though each room and
shaft.  A slush of ore runs through it from each drill site to the
processing center under New China.”

“What's that
smaller tube running across the ceiling?” Glennay pointed out.

“It's for the
miners,” Elizabeth answered simply without more explanation.

The group walked
down the tunnel until reaching a side area that blasted out from the main
tube.  Inside the room was a variety of old wheeled vehicles.  They
lay cold and dirty among a jungle of mechanical parts and machines once used to
maintain them.

“Before the
pipeline was installed,” Elizabeth explained, “an old-fashioned mine cart
system carried the ore to the plant.  Some of these carts were for that,
other carts were used to transport the miners.  None of this has been used
in years.”

One by one the
group noticed the look on Tyler's face.  He stood like a child outside the
clear glass window of a candy store.  His mouth hung open slightly and one
could almost see a twinkle of glee in his eyes.

“I've found the
motherlode,” he managed to get out, as he stumbled toward the pile of
parts.  “Do you have any idea how much these would go for on the antique
market?” he asked rhetorically.

Ignoring Tyler's
state of amazement, Ashley probed further into Liz's statements.

“You seem to know
quite a bit about mining for a politician,” Ashley commented.

Elizabeth ignored
her tone and replied. “Mining is the business of New China... making mining my
business.”

A reasonably
calculated answer left Ashley with little material to continue questioning, so
she grudgingly let it go.

The group moved
over to the mining carts.  Several were clearly beyond
reconditioning.  Others looked to be in good shape, but were missing major
parts.  After several minutes of searching, not surprising, Tyler found
the gem in the rough.

“There she is!”
Tyler gave with a boom of excitement.

“Shhhh!”  Elizabeth
quickly hushed the tech.  “This is a stealth operation, do you understand
what that means?”

Tyler tried to
reel in his excitement replying. “I'll try to scream a little quieter, sorry.”

“Put us to work,
Tyler,” John whispered to the group. “And everyone make sure to use your rubber
hammers.” He added with a hint of sarcasm.

Over the next
twenty minutes the group hunted and gathered parts throughout the room. John
assisted Tyler with the grunt work, tearing out parts of the cart's interior to
make room for the passengers.

“Too bad we can't
put people in the bed,” Tyler said referring to the back of the cart. “Trying
to squeeze three into the space made for one, is a treat.”

“I appreciate the
roomier back seat option,” John replied, “but I'd rather not find out the hard
way if we could live through the trip.”

“Point taken,”
Tyler agreed.

Less than an hour
after the group had entered the tunnels, the mine cart was ready to go.

“We'll see you
off, then I want to see what we can tap into from the control room upstairs,”
Ashley related to John. Before leaving she gave him an uncharacteristic public
kiss goodbye. Stephanie hesitated a second, then gave her step-mother a quick
hug.  Elizabeth stood back by the cart seemingly preoccupied by the vehicle.

Tyler helped the
three of them into the tight quarters, making sure Stephanie was able to reach
all the cart’s controls.

“Think you can
handle her?” Tyler asked Stephanie.

“I could drive
this when I was ten,” she replied full of confidence.  With a push of a button
she ignited the cart's engines.

“Let's go before
we have visitors,” Elizabeth reminded them.

With a wave, the
cart started its journey.  The rest of the group started their way back to
ground level.

Chapter 42  Unpleasant Memories

Guided by its
lights, the cart trekked down the lava tube. Stephanie steered the cart with
ease though a lesser pilot would have long since crashed. John's Ksync was
attached to the corner of the windshield.  Its screen displayed the
generic map of the tubes while showing the current position of the cart as they
traveled.  At various intervals down the tube a side passage would be
uncovered by dim overhead lighting. As Stephanie accelerated down stretches of
straight-away, John struggled to see what was passing beside the cart.
During an occasional turn though, she would slow down enough for him to get a
quick glance.

On one
particularly sharp bend, Stephanie was forced to slow down considerably.
John let out,“What was that?” as he peered into an adjacent mining
station.  His unexpected yelp had the unintended effect of shaking up the
other riders.  Stephanie instinctively swerved nearly hitting the side
wall.

“What?” Stephanie
demanded.

“You're fine,”
John quickly reassured her.  “There was something back in that part of the
mine.   I could see down a side passage and there were several dozen
people working mining equipment. That wasn't what got me.  It stepped into
the opening, right into the light.”

“What?” Stephanie
demanded again sounding more anxious than shocked.

“Heck if I know,”
John answered.  “It looked like a short person with something long and
drooping off his ears and neck.  He had short hair and whatever he was
dressed in was covered with soot.  What made me jump though, was the pair
of sharp claws that he brought up as we passed by.  I wouldn't want to be
on the wrong end of those.”

“Keep going and
don't slow down,” Elizabeth said with more than a hint of concern in her voice.
“Don't slow down for anything.”

“It's a little
late for me to be asking, but what aren't you telling us?” John stated
accusingly.

“Something I
didn't want to get into,” Liz replied defensively.

“The last time I
heard that,” John started to heat up, “your bags had been packed for five days
and we didn't see you again for over a decade.”

Liz was taken
aback by John's trip to the past. She recovered and matched his growing level
of emotion.

“Okay Mr. MARC
Soldier, here's your truth,” Elizabeth started. “That thing back there used to
be a person, a “Domer” more accurately.  Just like the winged people and
that panther man--they all used to be people.  That was before your MARC
scientists used them as guinea pigs for their own biological experiments.”

“Just what are you
talking about?” John struggled to understand what she was saying.

“Haven't you
figured it out yet John?” Elizabeth stated, her voice filled with conceit.
“These people were left out in the world during the great storms and the
biological terraforming that came afterward.  They were used to determine
the effects of your scientists’ genetic experiments on the planet.”

“That's not
possible,” John defended. “The MARC program would have never allowed that.”

“That’s right I
forget your leaders would never do anything inhuman,” Liz opened her retort. “Just
like your beloved country would never put soldiers in trenches, then detonate a
nuclear weapon nearby to see how fallout and people mixed in combat,” Elizabeth
shot back. “Oh that's right, I forget, you're from the country that bleeds
freedom and democracy.  Except… when it's not convenient to deal with
those pesky rights. Then you treat your own citizens like enemy combatants and
throw away a constitution and your souls while you’re at it.”

“That's enough,”
John objected.

“Enough?”
Elizabeth threw in one last punch. “Is it enough that you're the next set of
guinea pigs? Haven't you noticed John, this planet is about as stable as a duck
in a hurricane.”

"A duck in a
hurricane?" John chided. "Who's ever heard of a duck in a
hurricane?"

Neither one of
them had noticed, in the heat of their arguments, the subtle drops of moisture
that glided down their daughter's cheek. Catching everyone off-guard, she
slammed on the cart's brakes, knocking both of them against the front
dash.  The vehicle skidded to a stop a few inches away from the nearest
wall. While they were dazed with the wind knocked out of them, Stephanie popped
the cover of their cockpit and jumped out.

Immediately, the
suits they were wearing sounded a low oxygen alarm and automatically covered
their heads with a clear helmet. Their visors indicated that dangerous levels
of toxins were in the atmosphere, specifically cyanide.  He wasn't sure
which was causing his splitting headache the poison or the vehicle's
dashboard.  In his haze he thought they may be under an attack.  But
why poison? Something in his head clicked as he remembered an obscure fact from
his academy days. Cyanide had been used extensively in mining at one point
before being universally banned on Earth.  But then this wasn't Earth.
They were in a crash! He had been so disoriented that his brain was hopping all
over the place.

He cringed,
turning to check on Stephanie and Liz. Liz was unconscious, but his visor
reported her vitals as stable. Stephanie on the other hand, Stephanie was gone!

John ripped the
Ksync off the windshield and jumped out the door. He set it to track Stephanie's
suit. The Ksync locked onto her signal, yet it was dozens of meters down the
tube.  A surge of adrenaline pumped though John’s legs as he sprinted in
her direction. For a minute he wasn’t sure that he would catch Stephanie.
Suddenly his Ksync reported the distance between them was rapidly shrinking.  He
was quickly closing the distance, meaning she was likely at a standstill.
John fought through the pain in his gasping lungs to make a final push.
His feet send throbs of pain through his legs a result of boots that were not
designed for distance running. All of his physical ailments were ignored,
however, as his mind had focused on a single purpose.

As he neared
her, the Ksync pulsed and displayed several unknown objects closing in on their
position. It was only able to track movement. Vital statistics were listed as
unavailable. Had he been open to more stimuli, John would have considered the
pounding sounds of vibrations as they reverberated through the caverns. The
decibels increased as he ran, but the suit kept the noise within safe
parameters. When he was within fifty meters of Stephanie, John caught sight of
her. She stood at the corner of an opening that was lit by mining lights. They lights
were designed to illuminate their surroundings while preserving a sense of
night vision. Relics that benefited John thought the current residents had long
ago abandoned their need. As he drew within a few meters of her, John could see
a cavern opening leading to an extinct lava tube.

John gingerly touched
Stephanie’s shoulder, trying to keep her from jumping or clocking him with a
right hook. She jumped anyway, but faced him with a defensive posture instead
of taking a swing.

"Stephanie
what do you think you’re doing?" John scolded through his suit's comm.

He was about to
start into a monologue on the responsibilities of driving down a lava tube on a
covert mission, yet instead he froze. His vision caught several drilling
machines beyond them in the open area. The engines were stopped as the people
operating them became aware of their presence.  The miners slowly gathered
and moved toward John and Stephanie. Their heads were devoid of ears, at least
any that were visible. What was left of a nose was flattened and recessed into
their sullen faces. Their hauntingly large pupils seemed to cast a glow from underneath
their hooded garments. Reddish mud splattered across their bodies drawing similarity
to the blood stained gowns of a surgeon.  Pale skin exposed as arms
extended into claws from their knuckles. The sight was enough to throw a war
veteran into a state of fight or flight. To a seventeen-year-old girl, it was
enough to put her into a massive state of shock.

John slowly moved
to his daughter while he activated the self-defense charge on his Ksync.
He positioned himself between her and the group. Putting his hands up in front
of him he signaled for them to hold off.

“It's going to be
OK,” John said through his mic to Stephanie. “If you see a bright light, then I
want you to run as fast as you can back to the cart. You can do this.”

Hearing her
father's voice, Stephanie managed to contain her fright enough to respond.

“Okay,” she
managed to get out.

John tapped his
suit activating the external speaker.

“We're just
traveling through guys,” John tried to communicate.  “We had to make a
quick stop, and we're back on track now.  You all can go back to work -
sorry to interrupt.”

The miners didn't
pause at his words and continued to walk slowly toward them.

“Okay, they don't
seem to get it Steph,” John warned her. “Get ready to run when you see the
flash.”

Stephanie couldn't
seem to find her voice, but managed an affirmative nod.

John took a step
forward, pushed a button on his Ksync, and tossed it in front of the
approaching crowd.  The device hit the ground and then exploded in a
bright flash of electricity.  The chain of energy sparked from one miner
to the next causing them to shake violently and collapse from muscle spasms.

“Run Stephanie!
Run!” John cried out.

Stephanie hesitated
a second and then turned, running as quickly as she could in the direction she
had come. John watched her run off and then re-focused his attention on the few
who had escaped the Ksync's charge.  He clenched his fists and activated
the micro shock guns built into the forearms of his MARC suit.  Aiming
them at the half-dozen workers who had stopped their advance he warned them
off.

“You don't want
any of this!” he yelled in their direction as he slowly backed out of the
corridor.

The miners, who
had apparently been stunned by the sight of their comrades, gave out a piercing
shriek and lumbered at John.  He fired two quick shots on two separate
targets, sending both reeling to the ground much as the Ksync had
performed.  The rest, however, closed to close quarters.

Though their claws
appeared vicious, they were not designed for combat.  His suit, having
been built to resist such attacks, deflected their slashes.  What it
couldn't do, however, was resist the crushing weight that was heaped upon him
from their new tactic--pile on.

John struggled to
breathe as his diaphragm flung into spasms from the weight. In the corner of
his eye he caught one of the miners rearing up with a large drill bit in its
hands.  Rather than wait to see if his suit could resist its puncture, he
found enough voice to activate one last command.

“Body blow,” he
gasped.

Instantly, his
suit sent shocks of electricity shooting outward from all points. It created a
globe of energy around him for two seconds.  The miner’s pinning him flung
themselves away as their muscles spasmed. Before John could leap to his feet
and escape, a single miner had fought through the shooting pain to kneel next
to him. The light of the cavern cast a glimmer of light off the drill bit still
raised by his hands above John’s head. As the miner’s consciousness gave way
his body collapsed towards John. The metal tip of the bit sunk into the ground
beside him as John’s bulging eyes tracked its near tragic course.

Someone pulled the
miner off him and to the side.  Looking up, he saw Elizabeth standing over
him.  At the same time, he noted the power light in his helmet was
flashing emergency power.

“Care to give a
guy a hand?” he asked her.

She reached down
and struggled to pull him up as John struggled to give a push.

“What are you
doing?” Liz asked, in a tone John wasn't expecting.

“Um, saving our
lives,” he replied. “What does it look like?”

“Did you bother
trying to talk to them before stunning them with military grade weapons?” Liz
asked him.

“This is not the
sort of praise you're supposed to be heaping upon someone who just saved your
daughter's life,” John began, “but yes, I warned them off.  They didn't
listen to me at all.”

“Did you ask them
in Chinese?” she clarified.

“Of course not,”
John replied defensively. “I don't speak Chinese.”

“You don't,” Liz
countered, “but how about your Ksync?”

Trapped once again
in an argument he couldn't win, he started walking back toward the cart.

“I'll have to
thank you for these talks,” John stated as he walked. “My emotions were getting
all mushy remembering the finer points of our marriage.  Today has been a
good refresher course on everything else. If you'll excuse me, I need to jog
back to the cart before the cyanide in the air is all I'm breathing.”

Elizabeth was on
the cusp of another point, but John’s comment caught her off guard.
Cyanide in the air, yes the helmet indicated dangerous levels were all around
them.  She had banned its use in mining soon after taking over. It didn't
make sense.

The rest of the
short walk back to the cart was a silent one.  When they reached the
vehicle, Stephanie was back in the pilot's spot.  Though her audio was
muted, it was clear that she was sobbing.

They climbed back
into the cart and sealed the windshield.  John set the ventilation system
to filter out the toxins. In a minute the atmosphere was labeled breathable on
the dash computer screen.  The three of them retracted their helmets,
Stephanie tried to wipe away the tears as though no one would notice.

Both John and
Elizabeth gave their daughter a hug from their side of the cart.  Then
Stephanie suddenly let out all her anxiety.

“I'm sorry,” she
blurted out, “something inside me just went off when I heard you two
arguing.  It was like I was five again, and I needed to find a place to
hide.”

Elizabeth started
to tear up slightly and kissed Stephanie on top of her head.

“Everyone's fine.
It's OK,” she tried to comfort her daughter. “We're finished arguing, and we're
going to try to be peaceable right, John?”

John tilted his
head in Liz's direction as he tried a small amount of humor. “I can promise a
truce... at least for the rest of the cart ride.”

That brought out
an inkling of a smile from Stephanie as she tried to get her mind back on
piloting.  John pulled out the admiral's Ksync, having left his destroyed
device back in the tunnel.  He mounted it and then brought up the same map
he had copied over to his own Ksync.

“Ready to rock and
roll?” John asked.

Stephanie nodded
in agreement.

“Well let's see
what kind of music the admiral had on this Ksync,” John added.  “She
seemed like the classical music type, but who knows, there could have been some
AC/DC in her.”

Once again the
cart continued down the lava tube.  This time, barely audible outside of
the windshield, the “sounds of silence” could be heard in song and deed as they
went.

Chapter 43  Valid ID

They parked the
cart before reaching the last bend of the tunnel. Around the corner were the
last footsteps leading to New China. The cavern had transitioned into a
mechanical chamber of sorts. Great machines on the walls conditioned the air
around them removing any toxins that could travel into the city. Coming out
from behind the cart, Elizabeth was dragging her MARC suit having changed back
into her white robes.

“I cannot be seen
in this,” she stated bluntly tossing the suit into the cart.

John was about to
make a comment about fashion before function, but cut himself off. He had made
a promise and wanted to keep it...for as long as possible.

“So what’s this
lead to?” he asked.

“It's all
automated now,” Liz replied. “If it wasn't for the occasional problem in the
mines, we would have walled it up some time ago.  There's a security door
that we'll go through. It leads to an elevator that rises through the
processing center and into the city.”

John pulled out
his change of clothes from the cart saying. “Do I really need to wear this?” He
waved his own white toga in the air.

“Unless you'd like
to be shot before I can wave off the guards,” Liz offered, “then yes.”

John took a turn
changing behind the cart followed by Stephanie. When the two ladies stood by
each other with the same dress, he realized how much his daughter was a
reflection of her mother.  She had even put away her neuroband and
adjusted her hair like her mother's making the resemblance uncanny.

John pulled a
device out of the cart that looked remarkably like Jessica's princess
holographic projector.

“Amazing how
useful they make toys these days,” John commented. “A few tweaks here and there
and you have yourself some first rate espionage gear.”

John activated the
holographic projector and then calibrated it with each person's face.  One
by one the projector gave each one of them a new set of facial features.

“Do you think the
fact we look like Barbie dolls, and well a Ken doll, will give us away?” asked
Stephanie.

“No, but if your
father had bought the Chinese version of Barbie, this would be a bit more
convincing,” Elizabeth added.

The three of
them then started walking around the bend toward the security point.

“You have to be
all man to wear this as a warrior,” John joked.

“Warriors don't
wear togas,” Liz remarked. “They wear sagums.  Only children and elderly
men, or cripples wear togas in New China.”

John shot Liz a
look of chagrin.

“And you didn't
tell me this because?” John asked.

Elizabeth just
laughed as she walked on.

Reaching the
security point, the three of them stopped while Elizabeth tried her access
code.  John noticed two vidcams looking in their direction and hoped they
weren't being watched too closely.

The security door
emitted a green light and opened.  The three of them quickly stepped
inside.

“Down this hall is
the main processing plant,” Elizabeth said.  “There should be a
workstation just inside.  Avoid looking directly at anyone or any vidcams
and we should be fine.”

The three of them
stepped past a lift and continued to a second security door.  Elizabeth
once again entered her access code and was greeted by another green
light.  The door opened allowing them entry.  The chamber beyond was
a gigantic underground room.  The pipeline from the mines emptied into
several large pits in the room. The muddy slush churned and then headed down a
canal toward one of many blast furnaces. Several people could be seen working
the various machines in the room.  These people, however, wore reflective
suits designed to endure several dangers in processing the ore.

Elizabeth noted
her group's fascination with the processing chamber.

“When I started,
these people worked in rags,” Elizabeth remarked. “When their bodies couldn't
take the rigor of work, they were cast aside and replaced like broken parts in
a machine… even the children.  Now they have protective suits and safety
precautions.”

“Do children still
work here?” Stephanie asked.

“Only the oldest
ones,” Elizabeth qualified her response. “You won't find any ten-year-olds
working these machines.”

Following
Elizabeth's prompts the trio reached the maintenance area.

“What about them?”
Stephanie pointed across the chamber. “They aren't wearing any suits, and look
at that girl, she can't be much older than Jessica.”

Elizabeth shook
her head and was about to disagree, but she didn't as her gaze caught sight of
the workers.

“That can't be,”
Elizabeth said in dismay. “I forbade that practice... like the cyanide...” She
didn't finish her thought out loud, but instead entered the codes to gain
access to a maintenance room.

One by one they
slipped into the small room.  Sets of pumps and gauges weaved through the
room in crisscross fashion. John deactivated the holographic projector and set
it down.  Searching the room, Elizabeth found a computer workstation.

“Here we go,” she
said.

Logging into the
system, Elizabeth sent an audio page to her old friend.

“Sophist Gregory,”
she began, “I don't expect you to understand, but it's Sophia.  You must
return my page.  I am alive and well. Please respond.”

Elizabeth waited a
dozen seconds and repeated her message. She sighed as there was still no
response.

As she was about
to page another member of the Order, a voice came over the vidcomm.

“O-Sophia, you
cannot be,” an elderly voice stated. “Is this yet another cruel trick of the
mind? What more could you hope to gain from my broken body?”

Elizabeth was
taken aback by the words of her old friend.

“Gregory,” she
said with genuine concern. “Are my fears true? Has Dominic claimed my station?
What has he done to you?”

After a moment of
silence the raspy voice continued. “You're but a charlatan. This trickery will
do you no good.  O-Sophia was a kind soul until you claimed her life and
threw us into ruin.  I refuse to play your games Overman. Now be gone.”

“No! Wait!”
Elizabeth cried out.  “I'm O-Sophia! I can prove it. Ask me anything.
You've known me for so long. I can answer it.  You must trust me.”

“On fire,” the
voice gave a reply. “My mind is on fire from the questions you have asked me,
but there are questions that you cannot know to ask.  Secrets that she
shared, and I shared with her.  Tell me O-Sophia, long ago you traded love
for a promise. Tell me then, ghost of O-Sophia, what promise did you sell your
heart for?”

Elizabeth couldn't
help but glance in Jonathon's direction.

“I... I can't tell
you that, not here, not with those I am with,” she replied. “Please, choose
another question...”

But before she
could continue, the voice began to laugh hysterically. “I knew it.  You
think you're wiser than all of us, but you're not!  Just like your tricks,
you are a lie, but I see through them, don't I!”

“I promised to
take my fight to Mars, my soldiers and my cause, in exchange for one hundred
million in gold bullion,” Elizabeth stated as a matter of fact.  She
starred straight-faced into the workstation, fully comprehending the betrayal
she had revealed.

The voice on the
other end of the audio began to cough and wheeze.

“Could it be you?”
Gregory said hesitantly.  “O-Sophia... but he told me himself, that you
had been shot dead.  A plasma bolt to the heart.”

“Have you
forgotten my gift?” she replied.

The voice didn't
reply, but a soft choking of tears came across the audio.

By this time, the
shock of Elizabeth's admission had worn off.  Stephanie moved to her
father and put her face in his shoulder, turning away from her mother.
John continued to stand like a pillar. His glare would turn Medusa to stone.

“Who?” is all he
said.

Elizabeth didn't
respond.

“Who gave you the
gold, Liz?” John added his tone as hard as his gaze.

“You don't want to
know, John,” she replied continuing to look ahead.  “Let me finish this
with Dominic and I'll disappear.  You won't see me again.”

John stepped
forward and grabbed her by the arm, twisting her around.

“Tell me who it
was!” he shouted angrily.

Tears streamed
down Liz's face. “I've already caused you too much pain. Don't make me cause
more!”

John let her go.
Her empty answer had told more than words could explain. Confirming his
suspicions would have to wait, however, as the door to the maintenance room
opened. A small flashing device rolled like a mouse across the floor.

“Grenade!” John
yelled as he grabbed onto Stephanie then dove for the cover of a nearby
desk.

The grenade
exploded in a blinding light accompanied by a sonic blast of deafening
magnitude.  John couldn't see or hear, but he felt the grip of hands on
him restraining his movements.  He tried to yell to Stephanie, but he
couldn't hear himself let alone any reply.

With a yank his
body was picked up, now fully restrained by some sort of clasp.  He was
lugged around for several minutes.  At one point John thought he was in a
lift, given the telltale shaking of those that held him. He guessed they had
reached a destination when they stopped for some time. This was confirmed by
the pain he felt from being dropped onto a hard floor.  His shoulder had
caught the brunt of the landing forcing a yell of pain from John.

John thought he
heard a door closing, which meant he was hearing things or getting his hearing
back.  The latter proved to be true as his sight began to return to him as
well. Having his faculties impaired had distorted his sense of time. It felt
like hours before his sight fully returned.  Examining his surroundings,
John found himself in a pure white room.  It was furnished solely with a
solid slab for a bed. Silver metallic bars prevented him from leaving the room
and seeing what was in the corridor beyond. A barely audible hum told John the
bars were reinforced with an electrical field.

A clicking sound
came from down the corridor.  Several clicking sounds, in fact, echoed off
the walls.  As the clicks grew louder they resolved into three men.
Two were dressed in military grade suits much like his MARC gear.  The man
standing in the middle of them was none other than Dominic Andreou.

“Wait down the
hall,” Dominic commanded the men, waving them off.

He looked through
the bars at John. “Well old friend, I didn't think we would be crossing paths
again.”

“Mars is also a
small world,” John replied.

“Yes it is,”
Dominic agreed. “Your world, however, should be spread across the North Sea
right now.”

“Sorry to have to
disappoint you... well, again,” John returned an effective barb judging by the
look on Dominic’s face.

“Speaking of
disappointments,” Dominic replied, “where is that lovely woman of yours these
days? Off mating with other Neanderthals by now?” He cast a taunt of his own in
John's direction.

“Nope, I guess
having me around makes everyone else inconsequential,” he batted back.

Dominic yanked
open the unlocked door and stepped inside the cell.

“Well, I guess
having you around is… a problem,” he said, sounding too confident.

“The only problem
you need to worry about is what I'm going to do to you if you've harmed
Stephanie,” John said menacingly. He stood up. “And where’s Elizabeth?”

“I don't think you
fully appreciate your current lack of leverage,” Dominic replied coolly.

John didn't like
the fact he had just painted himself into a corner. Like a magician trapped in
an iron cage, it was time to show Dom a few of his new tricks.

That idea ground
to a halt as Dominic dropped the pieces of his neuroband on the floor in front
of him one at a time.

“Missing this by
chance?” Dominic asked.  “I wouldn't want you crawling into my mind, I hope
you understand.  Of course, it's not a great loss.  Like the pathetic
toy you used to enter my city, it has become outdated.  I think you'll
find my improvements mind shattering.”

“Maybe you'll like
my improvements to your face,” John said as he threw a right hook toward
Dominic's jaw.  The blow, however, never landed as John instead pulled his
swing at the last moment.  He grabbed his head in pain, falling to his
knees.

“That's the
position of respect I deserve from you,” Dominic delighted in the circumstances.
“I must say most men would be unconscious by now, John. You really are hard
headed. No matter, I have a better idea for how you can make amends.”

Dominic clapped
his hands and the two warriors returned to the room.

“Take him down to
the mines where he came from,” he commanded.  “Give him a re-breather and
leave him.”

“Zito Andreou!”
the warriors replied as they bowed.  After securing John's hands and feet
with locking clamps, they started dragging him down the corridor toward the
mines.

Dominic was
satisfied with his judgment. Their past friendship kept him from shooting John
with his pistol. These were leftover hesitations he needed to discard.
John would be afforded a challenge to prove he was fit to live. The
universal test of the worthy.  Either he would show the strength to
survive, or he would fall victim to his own inadequacies. Perhaps this would be
the trial he used for any who defied him. It warranted more contemplation.

*

Chapter 44  Welcoming Committee

Several anxious
hours passed since the trio had left the mining complex. Ashley and Glennay had
put the time to good use, managing to revive the abandoned command center
computers.   It also helped to take their minds off the long delay.
They had found several of the facility’s internal and external cameras were
still functional.  Glennay had even managed to get power to the surface
mining operations.  Ashley was hesitant to bring the grid back up, but
Glennay had insisted she had an idea for the mining machines outside.

Ashley
unearthed several new facts about her good friend. Glennay had spent several
years growing up in West Virginia.  Her family lineage stretched back to
the days of strip mining for coal along the Appalachian Mountains.  Her
fascination with technology been passed down by her father who was a mining
engineer.

“All that talk
about spas and living the glamorous life was a farce?” Ashley asked Glennay.

Glennay turned to
Ashley giving her a patented look of disapproval.

“Of course not,”
she denied the entire accusation. “Well maybe if you were talking about the
years I grew up in Mingo County.  Changing her voice to a rural accent she
continued. “I left my heart on the side of those country roads with the kindest
people I've ever known.”  Switching her voice back she winked at Ashley.
“But I picked up my fashion sense years later from walking the Magnificent
Mile.”

“You never cease
to amaze,” Ashley replied.

Glennay gave an
innocent smile as they both continued to work on the computer stations.

Kyle also had
efficiently put his time and skill to use.  Though John's leadership and
close quarter combat skills were renowned, Kyle had been recruited for his
specialty in military weaponry and tactics. The two of them together made a
habit of overcoming the odds during several “police actions” before joining
MARC.

Looking over the
Martian landscape, Kyle nodded approvingly.  With the number of automated
mines and turrets he had set up, anyone hoping to mount an offensive on the
mining complex may as well be reenacting Pickett's Charge. Now if John would
hurry up and bring their prisoner back, they could bug out and leave his
defensive grid in the hypothetical.

“How's it looking
up there?” Kyle asked his eyes in the sky.

“Clear as starry
night under a boab tree,” Tyler replied. “I can see a tick making air biscuits
on the back of a cattle dog from two clicks out.”

Not quite certain
how to factor the range, Kyle replied. “Just give me a heads up on anything
moving out there with a plasma cannon on it. I'm not so worried about the
ticks.”

“Nothing but the
good oil. Got it, mate,” Tyler acknowledged.

Jessica spun in
the navigator's chair to face Tyler.

“Do you always
talk funny?” she asked.

“I'm speaking in
genuine English,” Tyler replied.  “But you shouldn't brush off a heads up
for bities, especially those paralyzing ones... you can end up playing
scarecrow in a corn field that way.”

Jessica laughed at
Tyler.

“You're pretty
funny,” she said.  “Maybe you can teach my dad how to tell jokes.”

The two of them
laughed together.

At the same time,
a flashing light and warning sound emitted from one of the ship's
screens.  Tyler forced himself to focus on the alarm at hand.  He
brought up and enlarged the mini screen on the larger vidcomm.  Jessica
squirmed over in her seat to get a better look.

“Kyle,” Tyler
paged.

“Go ahead,” Kyle
responded.

“Look sharp,
mate,” Tyler warned, “we have two dozen armored ground cars leaving the dome on
your side of town.”

Kyle ran to the
make-shift command bunker he had dug in front of the mining complex.

“I'm linking us
with Ashley,” Kyle informed him. “Give us a run down.”

Kyle added Ashley
and Glennay to their comm channel.  Then he jumped over the waist high
wall and down into the pit on the other side. Recovering from his jump, he
walked over to the workstation he had set up to defend the area. Working
quickly, Kyle brought his defense net up to full alert and activated his mine
controls.

“Okay,” Tyler
began, “looks like New China has twenty ground cars positioning outside.
They're sporting light armor and plasma cannons in the back.”  A few
second later Tyler added. “More bad news, looks like they're rolling out six
heavy armored vehicles too.  A dab of good news though, those heavies are
a couple generations old.  I don't see any fliers right yet.”

“You got that,
Ashley?” Kyle asked.

“Yes,” she
replied.  “We're hoping to whip up a surprise of our own, courtesy of Ms.
Glennay, but we're still cooking it up.”

Meanwhile, a
series of warning alarms went off on the duck's vidcomm and Kyle's workstation.

“I guess the Ex
wasn't kidding,” Kyle added. “I'm showing multiple plasma turrets charging up
on the dome's exterior.”

“Tyler can you get
an ETA on the vehicles?” Ashley asked.

“They haven't left
the base of the dome so far,” Tyler explained, “but I'll get one if they start
in a direction.”

“Just keep those
eagle eyes trained on them,” Ashley reminded him.

Turning to Glennay
she asked. “So, is my best friend, the coal miner's daughter, going to have
some southern hospitality ready or not?”

Glennay seemed too
busy to notice, but then replied without looking Ashley's way. “If you start
singing Loretta Lynn so help me I'm going to throw a wrench at you.”

“Then I guess
you'd better work faster,” Ashley said as she made a mental note to research
Loretta Lynn on her Ksync.

“Don't worry,”
Glennay replied. “When it comes to dishing up trouble, my grits are to die
for.”

#

When the pain had
stopped pulsing through his head, John realized he was back in the mines.
He vaguely recalled the trip back, being thrown into a maintenance vehicle from
the processing center and driven into the lava tubes.  His other shoulder
hurt too as he remembered being kicked off the side of a vehicle by Dominic's
thugs.

He wasn't sure why
he was still alive or why they had bothered to give him a re-breather.
John knew how easy it would have been to dump his body out here without being
found.

“Paying off any
last debts?” he asked rhetorically. “You should have spent more time watching
Bond movies with me and my grandfather. Never let the good guy out of your
sight.”

John took stock of
what he did have at his disposal, which boiled down to his re-breather and the
flimsy toga he was still wearing.  He didn't have his Ksync, MARC suit,
and worse yet his neuroband.

What sight he had,
came from a light farther down the lava tube.  A source of light was also
a source of danger if there was a mining group there.  He ears told him
that was unlikely as the pulses of the drilling machines could be heard at this
distance.  He struck out for the light hoping he wouldn't be recognized by
his first impression.

#

Stephanie’s
insides were being ripped apart. She sat as far away from Elizabeth as the cell
would allow. Her eyes were locked forward refusing to see Liz. The confession
had poisoned their short-lived happiness. For years her heart had cried out for
her mother. The walls she had built and the people she had kept at bay were for
naught. The drawbridge to her heart had been lowered and the heartbreak snuck
right in. How could you abandon a child to satisfy your own aspirations?

The
truth smashed the fanciful image she had built of her mother. Her crutch of
self-righteous indignation had been kicked away. Without hope and without pain
she was left with the void of a broken heart. As the tears rolled down her
face, Stephanie slowly looked toward the ceiling of her cell. A distant memory
found its way into her thoughts. It was a memory that worked to comfort her.

Elizabeth
had been a leader, a negotiator, a peacemaker, but rarely a mother. The
hundreds of bargains she had made and problems she had solved were a useless
script for speaking with her daughter.

"Steph,"
Liz faltered before continuing, "Stephanie I won't insult you with
excuses. I failed you as a mother once and now I'm failing again. My voice must
be the last sound you wish to hear, but we must talk one last time. We have to
prepare. Dominic will come. He will come and I am terrified of what he will do.
"

Tears joined Elizabeth's
plea for an audience with her daughter.

"You must
live," Liz continued. "Don't think of your hate for me, think of your
father. Think of that precious sister you have.  Live for them."

Stephanie heard
another voice. A little voice inside her head had been speaking so softly that
she hadn't heard it. Its volume increased until Stephanie could no longer hear
her mother's words.  Her voice was no longer little, and it delivered a
clear message. She couldn't trust her mother. She had to trust herself.
With decisive strength, Stephanie fought her way through the crushing emotions
to clarity.

Stephanie
deciphered the facts that were woven into the duplicitous words from her
mother.  Dominic had been cruel. Moreover he was smart. Somewhere beyond
the walls of her cell, Dominic threatened everyone who had genuinely loved
her.  It was a list of people that had grown over the years, yet she could
not appreciate their love until now.  Stephanie saw the faces of all the
people on the list: her father, Jessica, Captain Sterling, and even...
Ashley.  A strange smile crept its way onto her face as she pondered the
irony. Here she was locked in a cell with the person that she had dreamed about
finding for years only to realize the person she should have cherished was with
her all along.

Stephanie ran her
hand along her toga.  Finding what she had hoped the guards overlooked,
she drew strength from an unexpected opportunity. Abruptly turning to face
Elizabeth, Stephanie rose from her crouched position and stood tall.

"We'll
talk," Stephanie answered confidently. "I'll detail the plan and you
can listen."

Liz was taken
aback by the vigor of her daughter's comments. The little child that hid behind
her legs from strangers was replaced by a confident young woman.

Stephanie used her
newfound strength to take the first steps of her new life.

"You'll
always be my mother," Stephanie explained. "I've let my anger run my
life for too long and it's not going to anymore. No matter how you justify it
you sold me out... sold us out. I finally understand the pain I've seen
in dad's eyes all these years. "

Stephanie paused
to compose her thoughts into words.

"I spent more
than a few angry hours sitting on a pew, next to a fighter pilot, who struggled
to fill in for a mom I didn't have. I heard over and over that I was supposed
to forgive others for their sins.  I never blamed you for not being there.
I blamed dad, my sister, my step-mother, and most of the world for my anger,
but I didn't blame you... until today. In some strange way I couldn't believe
you would have left us by choice. "

Stephanie fought
off the emotions threatening again to take her prisoner.

"I forgive
you," she blurted out while she could. "I want to be so angry but I
can't. I can't be angry and get through this. So I'm going to find a way to
forgive you and you're going to find a way to be a mom."

Elizabeth crumbled
from her daughter's charge. The words struck harder than any weapon could
injure. From her wound bled the buried tears of her child's lifetime. Liz shook
as her remorse crumpled her body and spirit.

Stephanie stood
paralyzed in action. Although her path had become so clear, she was clueless
how to respond to her mother. Stephanie remained locked in position as seconds
felt like hours. Her mind failing her, Stephanie's heart took over as she
slowly knelt down and sat next to her mother. She reached out to her mother in
a gentle embrace. It was a time for them both to start upon a new path.

#

With a wave of his
hand he opened the door to her cell. Sitting in the corner of the small room
was Dr. Elizabeth Stanton.  She was once a friend, a colleague, and a
person he had presumed dead.

“I have to thank
you for disguising yourself on the way in,” Dominic greeted her. “If people had
thought their O-Sophia was alive and well, that would have required a creative
explanation on my part.  Since you’re here, I feel the need to ask a very
important question.” Dominic cocked his head and asked, “Didn't I kill you
already?”

He sat down on a bench
in her cell trying to find a comfortable position.

“If I had known
about the genetic drinks you had been serving to your wise-men down here, I
wouldn't have so carelessly abandoned you,” he said.

Elizabeth stared
blankly at the wall refusing to acknowledge him.

“Don't care to
chat, I see,” Dominic gave a disappointed look. “Well I should tell you, I
really didn't want to kill you back on the Argo.  You had to push me. You
had to be curious.”

Dominic stood up
and walked back to the open cell door.

“Though you may be
curious as a cat, I can assure you of one thing,” Dominic paused.

Taking a plasma
pistol out from underneath his tunic he shot her twice in the head at point
blank range. Elizabeth's emotionless face seemed to freeze as her body slumped
against the wall.

“Your fruit
cocktail juice doesn't give you nine lives,” he finished.

Dominic placed his
pistol back in his robes and walked back down the prison corridor with a sense
of satisfaction.

As the clank of
the shut prison door reached them, Elizabeth and Stephanie took deep breaths.

“It worked,”
Stephanie said. “He didn’t see us at all.”

“I don’t think he
knew to expect your amazing gift,” Liz replied. “Though I almost screamed when
he fired those shots.”

Elizabeth turned
and looked at the marred wall.

“I don't think
Demosthenes had this in mind when he spoke of double jeopardy,” she joked.

Stephanie stood
confused at her mother's comment.

“It's in your
fifth amendment dear,” Elizabeth added. “You can ask your father all about it
later.”

She went over to
Stephanie and gave her an uncharacteristically warm hug.

“Thank you, you
saved my life,” she whispered as a large smile swept across Stephanie's face.
“Now let's find our way to your father and perhaps my friend if he's still
alive.”

Elizabeth rubbed
the neuroband on Stephanie’s head that had been hidden in her toga. “Can you
use that on people you can't see?”

“I couldn't
before,” Stephanie hesitantly volunteered. "I've never been able to do any
of this during my training with dad.  It's like a switch has been turned
on for me.”

“Just keep eating
those fruit snacks of yours,” Elizabeth said as the two walked down the
corridor together. “I'll explain it as we go.”

#

Approaching the
light source, John slowed his steps.  As it had in his earlier travels,
the light illuminated the entrance of a lava tube branching off from the main
corridor.  He leaned around the corner, hoping to get a glimpse of the
room without being noticed. Inside he saw a few mining machines, but nothing
like those used in his previous encounter.   The room was otherwise
empty, except for two small people standing beside a far wall.

The two were
taking a round piece of rubber and bouncing it off the wall.  Their
peculiar speech reminded him of laughter as it ricocheted in various directions
before returning to them.  John wasn't sure, but it looked and sounded a
lot like a game of handball.

The people didn't
notice John until an odd bounce carried the ball in his direction.  Seeing
him, they froze as the ball rolled to his feet.

John said in a
soft voice. “I don't suppose either of you speak English? I should have studied
Chinese at the academy, but I was too busy chasing after this slightly crazy
woman.  You might know her, she seems to call herself O-Sophia around
here... whatever that means.”

One of the two
repeated the name O-Sophia with an Asian accent.  The two then quickly
turned and ran toward a small opening in the wall.

“No, no, no!”
yelled John as he saw the two running off. He watched as a chance of seeing his
family again could be running away.

“A king's ransom
for my Ksync translator,” John thought he could kick himself.  He
continued muttering now imitating an old woman’s voice. “Take three credits of
Chinese, you'll need it later in life…”  He finished speaking in his own
voice. “Yes ,Mrs. Wendell you were right. You must have known I’d need to talk
with Martian miners with huge claws that only spoke Chinese.”

John decided to
forage for something useful now that the room was empty.  He rummaged
through various junk parts, rocks, and machines. The gear, however, must have
been thirty years old or more. What wasn't rusted didn't prove useful at all.

Taking another
look at the hole in the wall, John sized it up.

“Well it’s bigger
than the vents back on the Columbus,” he joked to himself. Trying his best to
imitate a worm, he crawled his way into the opening.  He bumped and banged
his knees, elbows, and arms as he travelled along the rough tunnel.

“Why do the miners
always have to be short people?” He continued to muse to himself. “How about a
few eight feet tall dwarves, Mr. Tolkien? No…it had to be the elves with the
long legs.” John bumped his head on a low hanging stone saying. “At least Moria
had tall ceilings!” After a few more feet, the small crawl space opened into another
room.  Unlike the last area, however, this one was filled with the clangs,
thuds, and banter of many people.

*

Chapter 45  Old Friends and New

Elizabeth led
Stephanie into a forgotten pathway through the city. The corridors were cramped
and dirty.  In some parts they had partially collapsed.

“How did you know
these even existed?” Stephanie asked.

Elizabeth thought
for a moment how she was going to answer her daughter's question.

“The MARC program
established all the dome cities years before I arrived on Mars,” she began.
“From what I've gathered, the domers worked hard at making your
great-grandfather's dream a reality here.  There were years when this
place floated on a sea of hope and optimism about what could be.”

The two of them
continued crawling down the small corridor. Elizabeth paused a minute as they
avoided a grate in the middle of the shaft.  Revealed through its small
slits was a room beneath them.  As they quietly passed by it, she
continued.

“Regrettably, when
your grandfather passed on and others took over, his hopes turned into poisoned
dreams,” she explained. “By the time I arrived, the people in the dome were
just a means of gathering resources for Earth.  Their rights were
suspended due to the “State of Emergency” that existed back home.  Just a
convenient way of tossing aside the freedoms that exist in a democracy by the
real power base, an Oligarchy.”

“Mom,” Stephanie
interrupted, “this sounds more like one of dad's history lessons than an
answer.”

“Fair enough,”
Elizabeth agreed. “Let's just say after years of working behind the scenes,
many spent days crawling through these dirty little crawlspaces. My
organization quietly set the stage to change the entire city.  One night
the people went to sleep forgotten subjects of a world far away. The next day
they woke up as citizens in The Order, led by those who would see them prosper
and thrive once again.”

“So you led a
revolution in this place?” Stephanie asked.

“Of sorts, I
suppose,” Elizabeth agreed in part, “but it was a peaceful exchange of
power.  The soldiers that wore MARC uniforms, traded in their suits for
tunics.  Even my general was once a commanding officer for them.  In
the end, only a handful of people resisted including the governor.  They
were given fair trials by The Order and punished justly.”

Paying too much
attention to their conversation and not to their surroundings, Elizabeth
smacked her arm on a pipe.

“Oww, darn it,”
she said softly.  “I swore I'd seen the last of these filthy crawlspace
years ago.”

Stephanie paused
as she watched a gash on her mother’s arm seem to close immediately.
Within seconds the wound had already begun to scab over and heal.

“How is that
possible?” she asked.

Liz stopped,
recognizing what her daughter must have witnessed. She didn’t want to take the
time to explain, but she also couldn’t think of a way to gloss over the
subject.

“Remember I told
you to eat your fruit snacks?” she asked rhetorically. “Eating the fruit from
the tropical rainforest can enhance your own genetic strengths.  It turns
out my side of the family are fast healers.  Our scientists found a way to
concentrate this effect and speed the development of this genetic change.
It has kept me alive a few times now, including a recent scuffle with an old
friend of mine.”

Stephanie accepted
the information at face value.  It helped her make sense of the crazy
world she had been thrown into.

“So the bird
people, did they get this way from eating the fruit? Or the miners?” she
questioned her mother.

“No, not in that
exact way,” Liz answered. “Their change was the result of the experiments that
created the planet’s biomes. Unfortunately for them, their changes were far
more immediate and excessive.”

“Are they stuck
that way?” Stephanie asked.

Elizabeth was
hearing the clock ticking in her mind to keep moving.

“I’m not sure,”
she answered vaguely. “We need to hurry Stephanie. We can talk more later.”

Stopping before
reaching another grate, Elizabeth changed the subject.

“The door in this
hallway leads to quarters of my dear friend Gregory,” Elizabeth informed
her.  “The two guards outside the door give me hope he is alive. Can you
use your ability to distract them somehow?”

Stephanie
considered an effective ruse then projected her thoughts upon the two men. Liz
couldn't ascertain why, but both men looked in opposite directions clearly
searching for something. Suddenly they sprinted opposite directions down the
hall. Their voices faded as they continued down the hall giving an order to
stop. After a few seconds their commands could be heard again as they returned.
Both warriors nearly ran into each other at the doorway.  Seeing one
another they drew their weapons. Their picture of an illusionary bandits had
been given to each other, both firmly believing they had caught up to the
ruffian.

“Put the blaster
down!” the young guard commanded, raising his pistol toward the veteran.

The old guard
knelt down as though placing his weapon on the ground. He instead quickly fired
his weapon, striking the young "bandit" in the chest.  He
slumped to the floor, unconscious.  As the elder guard pulled his Ksync
off his belt and was about to speak into it, he stopped.  A look of worry
came over his face as he stared down an empty corridor.  Slowly he knelt
down and put his Ksync on the ground along with his plasma pistol.  The
guard then kicked both of them away.  After that he raised both of his
arms up in the air saying, “Please don't shoot me, I've three children that
need me.”

Stephanie
continued to focus her gaze on the guard below, but said to her mother in an
emotionless voice, “Drop down now.”

Elizabeth slid the
grate aside and dropped down from the shaft.  Moving quickly, she picked
up the younger guard's plasma pistol and aimed it at the kneeling warrior.
Firing a stunning shot she knocked him unconscious, his body spread across the
floor.

Stephanie dropped
down to the corridor soon after, checking the pulse of each man.

“They're alright,”
she said to Elizabeth who had already moved to the doorway after grabbing a
card from the nearest guard.

Elizabeth waived
the card across the screen of the vidcomm and the door to Gregory's quarters
opened.

“Bring them
inside,” Elizabeth told her daughter.

Sitting on a
modest couch in the middle of a small living area was an elderly man, clearly
in the last years of his life.  Both legs and his left arm were in a crude
cast, the sight only eclipsed by the dark bruises on his face and head.
His reason seemed intact though, as evident by his speech.

“Great Caesar's
Ghost,” he uttered with a stare of disbelief.  “You are alive. I wasn't
dreaming when I spoke with you on the vidcomm.”

Moving to the old
man Elizabeth gave him a smile and a gentle tap on his right arm.

“What did he do to
you Gregory,” she said with a voice of concern. “He'll pay dearly for this
transgression if it's the last thing I do.”

“Don't fixate on
the livelihood of a man with so few days left,” he replied. “You must find a
way to toss that demagogue from our city.”

Before Gregory
could continue, his eyes stopped upon Stephanie.

“I never knew you
had a sister, Elizabeth. What is her name?” Gregory asked.

Masking a smile
Elizabeth replied. “You know better you old fool.  This is my daughter,
Stephanie.”

The man seemed to
think for a moment before acknowledging her.

“From Earth,
Stephanie your daughter from Earth,” he repeated.  “Then has he come as
well?” Gregory added.

Elizabeth nodded.

“Even the bearers
of that banner are a fair sight compared to our current lot,” Gregory added.
“Do what you must and seek aid where you can. This tyrant must be
stopped.”

“My father came
here to bring Dominic to justice,” Stephanie said standing tall. “He won't rest
until Dr. Andreou answers for his crimes.”

“She sounds full
of fire and fury,” Gregory commented to Elizabeth.  “Reminds me a bit of
another young lady I've had the fortune to know.  Perhaps there's
malleability yet in the mold for her.”

Elizabeth gave the
man a smile and a quiet response. “Perhaps if time allows.  For now, I need
to know how deep Dominic has sunk his dagger into the city.  I need your
help to take back what is rightfully ours.”

#

Moving to the
room’s entrance, John knelt down and then peeked around the corner.
Several paces across the room were several miners.  They were pulling a
short flatbed cart, likely used to move heavy machinery.  On this flatbed,
however, rested the vehicle they had used to travel through the mines.
John couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw the two small people who had run
from him.   One of them was tossing a ball in the air as he walked.

A much different
sight grabbed his eye from another corner of the large hall. Here several women
were tending to injured miners.  John’s heart sank as he could tell
several of them were children of various ages.  They looked to have
suffered wounds ranging from burns to lacerations. He had to look away as a
rage began to rise from his core. Who were the monsters here?  Was it
really these people with their strange adaptations, or those who would work
children in such conditions?

He had witnessed
it back on Earth. During his assignments abroad it was far too commonplace to
see children leaving their homes to work hundreds of miles away in a factory or
mine. In the company of total strangers they would work twenty hours a day in
decrepit conditions. They hoped to send what little money they could back home
to their loved ones. It was a heartbreaking pattern to see repeated time and
again. One more example of how hard it was to comprehend such tragedy until it
was personal. One more example of people ignoring injustice while their pockets
filled.

If he was going to
have any way to help these people, he was going to need their help first.
Believing his best chance of escaping rested on the flatbed, John decided to
try to communicate with them.

Crawling into the
room, he raised his hands up at his waist and said, “Ni hao.” The group of
miners stopped, quite surprised at his appearance. “That's all I know, sorry.”
John couldn't bring himself to admit he had only known that from reading
fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants.

“If you only knew
I'm trying to help here,” John explained in futility. “If I just had my
Ksync!”  John pictured the language translator on the small device,
wishfully thinking he had one. A wish that he didn’t recognize was shared.

The miners began
talking with each other, their voices were deep and guttural, but they were
clearly using a form of Chinese. One of the miners climbed up on the
flatbed.  He reached into the cart and pulled out all the clothing and
gear they had changed from.  After dumping everything on the ground below,
he finally stopped and made a sound of satisfaction as he pulled a Ksync out of
the cart.

The miner hopped
down and slowly approached John.  Carefully he extended his clawed hand
toward John, with the Ksync dangling off one of the points.

“How did you
know?” John asked rhetorically.

John slowly
reached up and took the offered Ksync.

Still confused,
John brought up the language translator on the Ksync and selected English to
Chinese. He then chose “speaker” and “take turns” under options.

“Hope this works,”
John said out loud before realizing the Ksync would pick up his voice and
translate it.  The device at once enunciated his words in a standard
Chinese dialect.

Hearing his
Chinese, the group became quite excited. Some of them pounded items they had on
the ground while others raked their claws together like rhythm sticks.
The miner who had handed John his Ksync then spoke to him in Chinese.

The Ksync paused a
second then beeped. It was followed by a rough English translation, “You're
talking box speaks our language well.”

“How in the world
did you know to get this?” John asked.

The miner replied,
“It entered our thoughts like a dream, but we were awake.”  He motioned
toward the cart. “I saw this box in my head and knew it would help us talk.
Then I remembered seeing it when we searched the machine.”

“You know,
sometimes you're crazy ex isn’t so crazy,” he laughed to himself. “I should
have led with my tongue instead of my fists.”

The miner looked
confused.

John waived his
words off, interjecting. “Don't repeat that to anyone. In fact I think we just
had a faulty translation.”

Transfixed on the
language lesson, John had tuned out the moans of the injured. As his perception
relaxed he heard the cries of the children once again. John requested. “Please,
let me search my gear. I had some medical supplies in there that could help.”

After the
translation, the miner in front of him stepped aside.  John jogged over to
pile of equipment.  Locating the medical pack they had taken for the ride,
he opened it up.  Glancing through it, satisfied it was in good shape,
John then turned back to the miner.

“Do you have a
doctor, a nurse, someone that can use this?” he asked.

One of the elderly
looking women tending the injured miners spoke up. “I remember the days we had
such things. Back when we drove the excavators and the dump trucks, we were
trained for emergencies.  I will try my best now, but those old ways
required things I don’t have.”

“Well maybe you’ll
remember some of these supplies,” John replied, carrying the medical bag over
to her.

She let out what
could have been a gasp as she rummaged through the pack with her claws.

“Some of this does
look familiar,” she settled on. “Bless you for coming. It pains me to watch
these young ones come to me for help.”

Looking at the
hurt children, his thoughts drifted to his own daughters.  He couldn’t
imagine living in a place where such injuries were commonplace.

Turning back to the
miner who had helped him, he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Shu Han,” the
miner said.

John walked up to
him and put his hand on the miner’s shoulder. “Shu Han I promise you I’ll do
everything I can to stop these injuries. First, I need your help to reach New
China.”

“Stranger,” the
miner responded, “you cannot stop this.  We toil in these mines in
exchange for our lives. Without the blood ore we mine, we would have nothing to
trade for our food.”  The miner pointed toward the smaller pipeline he saw
in the beginning of his journey.  Examining the pipe John could see its
true function.  Two nozzles extended from one section of the
pipeline.  He watched as one worker extracted water from one of the pipes
and then oatmeal (or something looking like oatmeal) from the other.

John shook his
head at the realization of the servitude these miners existed in.

“I’m not sure who
is running this place, but it’s time we renegotiated your contract,” John told
Shu Han.

Moving over to the
pile of equipment again, John lifted his MARC suit out of the pile.

“First things,
first,” he said throwing it over his shoulder. John looked for a good place to
change. “I can’t strike fear in the hearts of men wearing this toga.”

*

Chapter 46  This Land is Mine Land

The sensors in the
duck detected movement from the group of armored vehicles.  It sounded an
audible alarm and a flash on the vidcomm as it was programmed to respond.

Tyler sat up in
his seat, having temporarily been lulled into a daze by lack of sleep and
inactivity.

Casting aside his
usual banter, Tyler quickly assessed the situation and gave a report.

“We have
movement,” he warned. “Looks like a diamond formation with heavies at the
tips.  Taking point are a half dozen speed buggies running a sweep in
front of the convoy.”

Kyle responded to
Tyler's description.” Are there sweepers in the back or just the front?”

“Looks like
sweepers in the front only,” Tyler clarified. “They're on a firm heading for
the mining complex, ETA twenty minutes.”

“Good work Tyler,”
Ashley replied. “What's the play Kyle?”

“We need to take
out the heavies,” Kyle replied. “They're the only ones with enough punch to
level that complex you're in.  With those sweepers out in front, I can't
send in my mines.  If you try to send in your drones to take care of them,
they'll be shredded by those pulse cannons on the dome… which means they're all
going to be on top of us before we can start fighting.”

“Sounds like you
could use a way out that mess,” interrupted a familiar sounding voice over
their comm channel.

“Captain?” Ashley
called back over the comm.

“I sent you on a
thief's mission, instead I find you testing fate with a small army,” Captain
Sterling said disapprovingly.

“What's your
position Joker?” Kyle referred to the captain by her call sign.

“Bulls eye one
forty, eighty kilometers, angels fifteen, Lieutenant,” she reported back. “No
need to paint anything. I brought my own. Just call a target.”

“Our remotes are
pinned by direct fire along the watchtower,” he informed the captain. “We could
use some relief.”

“Roger that, Wilco
out,” she ended the exchange.

A short time later
two fighters could be heard in the distance.  The winds howled as they
blazed across the terrain in the blink of an eye. Each plane launched a volley
of missiles before banking away from the city.  The missiles approached
the city’s defenses bringing its cannons to life with a new purpose.
Two missiles exploded in the sky before the remaining ones split again into
several smaller streams.  The cannons strained to catch the incoming
volley before reaching them but failed. One by one, the defensive turrets
exploded, sending shock waves through the upper levels of the dome.

“Ashley, send in
the bobcats while they're off-guard, before it's too late,” Kyle instructed
her.

She replied in a
melodic voice, “Right through the gate...hey, that rhymes.”

“Even Dylan had to
start somewhere I suppose,” Tyler commented, having heard the exchange over the
comm.

“Who's Dylan?”
Glennay asked.

“How is it you
Americans can't remember your greatest songwriters?” Tyler replied.

“She only listens
to Loretta Lynn,” Ashley cut in, still hoping to find the time to look her up.

An old-fashioned
computer drive went whizzing past Ashley, clearly meant to warn not injure.

“Hey, I'm trying
to drive here,” Ashley shot back hoping to avoid more flying computer parts.

Like lions woken
from the grasslands of Africa, the bobcat mining machines roared to life.
Ashley and Glennay had several screens positioned around them each virtually
tied in to the controls of the machines. They paused a moment as the unsettled
dust outside the complex obscured their vision. Once cleared, Glennay swung the
bucket of her excavator to its front. Straightening the arm like a lance, she
imagined the faces of their attackers when they saw it charging at them.

Ashley threw her
loader into second gear.  By the time it hit fourth gear, even a heavy
assault tank would be squashed like a tin can in a compactor.
Simultaneously, she wound a pair of high wall miners in the direction of the
oncoming sweepers.  The miners had their giant chainsaws locked in front
of them, forming a terrifying counter for any lightly armored truck.

Glancing over to
Glennay, Ashley reminder her. “Go for the lead heavy, I'll take care of the
sweepers. Hopefully Kyle can take out the rest.”

In his homemade
bunker outside, Kyle surveyed an action map of the scene upon his workstation.
Ashley's miners were headed directly for the sweepers.  If they could
punch a hole through, Glennay's excavator should be able to open up a gap in
the diamond formation through the lead heavy.  It would just be a matter
of guiding his hover mines through the gap and blowing the formation apart from
the inside.  His turrets should be able to clean up most of what was
left-over.

Seconds passed
like hours before the two sides engaged.  The sweepers were designed to
nimbly catch and destroy small vehicles and mines.  Unfortunately for
them, the high wall miners proved to be surprising agile in their own
right.  Moreover, their powerful chainsaws were designed to rip into the
side of earth and stone walls, which translated into short work for them against
the sweepers.

Kyle’s mines flew
like mosquitoes over a stagnant pond.  Keeping them in tight formation
behind the loader, Kyle hoped to create an odd profile that would confuse the
enemy's scanners.  Seconds after the sweepers had been shredded, the
loader hit the heavy tank at full speed.  The two titans collapsed in on
one another as both refused to give way.  The resulting impact sent debris
shooting straight into the sky like fireworks.

With a gap in the
formation, the mines shot into the middle and then fanned out attaching
themselves to the interior of the convoy.  As the rear heavy began to make
a desperate turn to avoid the massive collision in front of it, the entire
convoy was rocked into the air by the exploding mines.  Even the heavily
armored tanks bounced as a result of the explosion.  The ground cars, in
the middle of the formation, were caught in a tornado of flying shrapnel.
Their lightly armored exteriors were repeatedly pierced, leaving more of a
Swiss cheese resemblance than that of steel plating. All that emerged from the
cloud of smoke and debris were a handful of ground cars.  The battalion
had been reduced to a shadow of itself.

“I hope you had a
good view of that Dominic!” Kyle called out as though the city could hear him.
“Your day of reckoning has come.”

#

John walked up to
the door leading from the mines to the processing center.  This time
however, he approached dressed in his MARC uniform with a plasma rifle
supported in both hands. The entrance had changed as well.  A large blast
door had dropped down sealing off the entrance. A red flashing light swirled
above the blast door, indicating security precautions had been engaged.

John turned and
waved behind him.  A massive wall of miners filed in from the shadows of
the lava tube.  In front of them John's new friend, Shu Han, stepped
forward to consult.

“I'm going to need
your help knocking on the door,” John expressed to his ally.

“How can we help?”
the Ksync's translator replied for him.

“Do you have
anything that will get me through this?” John asked.

Shu gave what
looked to be a grin followed by a bow. He then quickly walked back to his
fellow miners. He barked out commands, which were quickly followed by several
men heading back into the lava tube. As he walked back, John saw the invention
of what he would later call "Shu's happy-scary dance".  It was
like watching a large wolverine strut like Mic Jagger.  Shu stopped at
John, pointed at the door, and in a barely comprehendible English said,
"You get what you need."  He then let out a belly laugh like no
other.  If Kyle had been present he would have seen the second time on
record that John was at a loss for words.

#

Stephanie and
Elizabeth found themselves sneaking through maintenance shafts once again. This
segment of the shaft was just over five feet high, allowing the women to walk
with a duck rather than a crawl.

Peering through a
nearby grate, Stephanie saw a main thoroughfare of the city beyond.

“What are those
screens I keep seeing on every street?” she asked Liz. “It looks like an image
of Dominic on the screens, but I can't make out what is being said.”

“That's him
alright,” Elizabeth confirmed. “It looks as though he has taken our citywide
information network and turned it into his own propaganda machine. Stop and listen.
I can't make it all out either, but it sounds like he's blaming The Order for
something.”

The two of them
strained their ears to make out what the vidcomm was saying.

“You
do not have to look any farther for the source of these ills than the Order itself!”
Dominic
said in a fury. “Their coddling of MARC sympathizers has undermined
everything that we have worked so hard to change. Even now our soldiers defend
the city against the war machine of the MARC imperialists.”

“Do you believe
this?” Stephanie remarked in disbelief.

“SHHH!” Elizabeth
instructed her, with a heightened agitation.

Dominic continued
his accusations.

“Would
you allow yourselves to be taken again as slaves to an economic machine of
greed?  Will you peacefully hand over your freedoms, so they can profit
while you break your back?  No!  We will fight them, we will fight
them with every last ounce of strength that we have.  We will defend our
home, our children, and our future!”

Strain as they
might, the cheers of the crowd overshadowed the speech's volume.

“This is worse
than I thought,” Elizabeth remarked with dread. “We need to move quickly if
we're going to have any chance of cutting off the snake’s head.”

They continued on
their way, crouching as they went, but with a pace that valued each moment.

#

Tyler and Jessica
laughed with joy as they watched the explosions from afar.  Their
attention was so engrossed with the battle, that they didn't pay any notice to
a beat red Wispy entering the cockpit.  A small arc of electricity crossed
in patterns in front of the hovering companion.

A human voice came
from Wispy catching both of them completely off-guard. Jessica nearly jumped
out of her chair.

“I'll have the
last laugh I assure you,” scolded Dominic's voice through the hovering machine.

Confused with the
situation Tyler said, “What's this, a talking Wispy?  Who's this really,
Glennay? Kyle?”

The electric arc
increased in intensity, making a crackling sound in the air and encouraging
Jessica to crawl back in her chair as much as possible.

“Which derelict
ship did they pull you from Brit?” asked Dominic rhetorically.

“I'm not from
Pommy Land,” Tyler responded, as he was now very suspicious of the
speaker.  “Maybe if you weren't so up yourself you'd know that.”  He
insulted, hoping to gain more insight into the speaker.

“It's a shame your
sense of wit escaped orbit,” Dominic replied. “Maybe I can take care of that
oversight now.”

As the voice
finished its threat, Tyler drew his blast pistol from his side and aimed for
Wispy.  He wasn't fast enough, however, to avoid the shock that arced from
the floating machine.  The pistol dropped from his hand as he slumped over
in his chair.  Jessica screamed and ran out of the cockpit into the rear
of the ship.

Wispy moved to the
cockpit controls.  With a jolt to the screen, the blast doors leading to
the cockpit sealed shut.  Several arcs later, the duck had powered all
systems.  Then with its unique capabilities, the duck blasted off with a
magnificent jump.  Gliding down from its lofty position, it landed firmly
on the ground outside the mining complex.

The unexpected
landing of the duck drew the attention of Lieutenant Jennings.

“Tyler, what the
heck are you doing?” Kyle reprimanded him across the comm.

Without a
response, two pulse cannons extended themselves from both sides of the
duck.

“Tyler what...”
Kyle tried to ask a question but could not finish as the cannons unleashed
their fury upon his defensive turrets.   Rotating its torso, the duck
mercilessly blasted each turret from behind.  Kyle stood and watched in
complete disbelief.  Luckily his survival instincts kicked in as the duck
rotated in his direction and unleashed several blasts.  Kyle hit the deck
of his own bunker, which remained in multiple pieces above him.

Kyle screamed on the
comm. “Tyler have you lost your mind! Stand down! Stand down!”

Watching
helplessly from inside the mining complex, Ashley and Glennay starred at the
screen in disbelief.

“What are we going
to do?” Glennay asked in a partial state of shock.

“I don't know.
Jessica… Jessica is in there. Oh my god,” Ashley replied, clearly overwhelmed
by the situation.

The duck
positioned itself midway between the main complex and the make-shift bunker
Kyle was half-buried under.

Kyle sent a
private page across his comm to Ashley, prompting her to set up a new channel.

“It's Kyle,”
Ashley said, establishing a new link between them and putting it on speaker.

“I'm open to
suggestions,” Kyle relayed. “Much as it pains me to say, I'm at a bit of a
tactical loss here. This is usually when John comes up with something
crazy.  So anyone want to play John for this crisis?”

Kyle's humor was
lost in the moment. Ashley stood shaking her head as words eluded her.

Chapter 47  Karma

The large drill
bit spun down as it finished piercing a man sized hole through the blast
doors.  Ducking through the opening, John re-traced his steps down the
corridor. Unlike the first run, he stopped at the main they had passed on his
previous trip.

“All decked out
with an army and no place to go,” he said to Shu Han and several miners
following behind.

John looked at the
Ksync in his hand. Unfortunately, it was Stephanie's, so it didn't have any
maps of the city like his.

“My kingdom for a
kiosk,” John joked as Shu gave him a confused look. “Don't worry the jokes
don't go over well back home either.”

John leaned back
against the wall and bumped the back of his head as if it would help him come
up with a plan. If only he had his neuroband, then he could try to ghost to
Steph.  The anxiety he had buried over his daughter’s safety was beginning
to surface. He closed his eyes and pounded his head again, choosing physical
pain over the emotional.  As his head contacted the wall an image of
Stephanie flashed in his mind.  She was crawling through some sort of
tunnel.

“What was that?
Steph?” John asked out loud.

Shu and a few
miners around John turned in his direction, trying to understand what he was
saying.  John didn’t try to clarify his words. Instead he tried to bring
up the image of his daughter again, without the head banging.  Another
image appeared in his mind, this one staying longer.  John saw not only
his daughter, but Elizabeth crawling through some sort of passage.  After
a few seconds the image faded.   He thought the miners hearing his
thoughts was a fluke. This wasn’t a fluke. It felt real. Moreover, he could
recreate his actions. Was it possible he could do this without a neuroband?

Closing his eyes,
he focused his thoughts and tried to do what was impossible a day ago. He
forced himself to remember every last detail about his daughter.  The time
she broke her finger in a door jamb and cried when she was five. The day he
wanted to break his hand on boy that made her cry after junior prom... and
everything in between.   His past told him this would work. It had to
work.

When he opened his
eyes, John could see her standing in a cramped room with Elizabeth.

“Stephanie,” John
said in a voice that entered her mind.

She stopped and
shook her head for a moment. Looking perplexed she replied. “Dad is that you?”

Immediately
Elizabeth turned. She looked behind her daughter and to each side trying to see
John.

“Yes it's me,”
John replied. “Are you OK? Where are you?”

Stephanie rolled
out a big smile. “I'm fine, Dad. I'm with Mom.  We're on our way to find
Dominic.”

“Who are you
talking to, Stephanie?” Elizabeth asked. “Your father? Is he here? How are you
talking to him?”

Stephanie gave her
mother the “just a second” finger, something she was clearly not used to
receiving.

“Dad wants to know
where we are,” Stephanie told Elizabeth.

“Level fifteen,”
she answered. “But the maintenance shaft we're following will reach level
sixteen in just a minute.  Dominic is likely using the communication room
to make those city-wide updates.”

“We're on level 15
going to level sixteen, Dad,” Stephanie said.  Pausing a moment as if to
listen to someone she continued, “He wants to know how to get to level sixteen.
I guess the lift he's in only goes to level fifteen.”

“He's in a lift?”
Elizabeth remarked with surprise. “If he doesn't get himself captured, then the
only way to get to level sixteen from the lift exits is up the main steps of
the city center.”

“He said he'll
meet us there, and not to worry about being captured,” Stephanie informed her
mother.

Elizabeth shrugged
her shoulders and pointed to the ladder leading to level sixteen.

“Okay we have to
go, Dad,” Stephanie said out loud, apparently unaware speech wasn't required
for her conversation.

#

Three residents of
New China waited patiently for the lift to arrive. It was clear that they were
in the middle of a very heated discussion.

“Just let those
MARC scum try and get in here,” one of the teenage boys challenged.

Another joined in.
“Yeah, give me a chance at them. We’ll see who’s running home to Earth.”

A customary
bell sounded as the doors to the lift opened.  Inside a man holding a
two-handed pulse rifle and wearing military armor was packed in front of a
half-dozen men caked in dirt and carrying mining tools.  The gleam of
lights reflecting off their hollow eyes was punctuated by the long claws
extending from their hands.

Jonathon Quinn
smiled and said. “It's a bit packed in here. You might want to catch the next
one.”

The three
teenagers responded with slow nods as they stood in a puddle of shock and
disbelief.

With a wave, the
lead man hit a button inside the lift causing the doors to close. The young men
looked at each other quickly, then turned and headed for an alternate lift.

#

Ashley had an
incoming page on her Ksync.  She nearly ignored it but something told her
it could be John.

“Mommy, can you
hear me? Mommy, I'm scared,” Jessica's voice trembled out of Ashley’s Ksync.

Ashley dropped
down to the floor, her legs giving out on her. She could feel her heart crying
out to Jessica.

“Jess,” she
struggled to reply. “It's okay sweetie I'm here. Where are you?”

“Mom, I'm in the
back of the duck,” Jessica replied. “A bad guy took Wispy over and she shocked
Tyler. I don't know if he's okay because he's behind the door to the pilot's
seat...” Jessica rambled in fear as she spoke to her mother.

Ashley's thoughts
raced like never before, putting the pieces together. A bad guy had taken over
Wispy. That didn't make sense.  Wispy shocked Tyler. She reasoned that was
technically possible given Wispy's interfacing program, but...

It all suddenly
made sense:  the seemingly harmless roaming, the tweaks to her programming
that didn't seem to stick, and the bad man.  Ashley remembered an acronym
she had forgotten long ago.  Wispy was a lab assistant named for: W-band, interface,
specialist, and protocol.  Jessica added the letter “Y” because she
thought it sounded cute.  Wisp was built as computer assistant to
interface with other computers. The prototype was built by a noted lab
assistant - Dr. Dominic Andreou.  At the time he was a brilliant up and
coming scientist she had studied with a few times. Wisp had been given to her
as a token of affection on one of those sessions.

“Wispy is running
the duck!” Ashley exclaimed.

“What?” Glennay
replied, wondering if Ashley was falling apart.

“I can't explain
it all now,” she said. “Wispy is running the duck like a remote, like we are
with the mining machines.”

Glennay took her
word on face value. "So what can we do?"

“Jessica,” Ashley
said, “sweetie, we're going to get you out of there. I need you to do something
for me though. I need you to find my experiment in the back. It looks like a
workstation. Find it and attach you're Ksync to it, OK?”

“Okay, Mommy,”
Jessica replied.

A few seconds
later, a light flashed on Ashley's Ksync.  It indicated she now had a
connection to the plane's computers.

Ashley attached
her Ksync to her portable workstation already interfaced with the mining
station.

“Dominic,” Ashley
said with a staunch determination. “You’ve taken from me, from my friends, and
from my family.  It’s time I called you up and ordered a little take-out
of my own.”

Knocking open the
black case attached to her belt, Ashley pulled out a distinctly slim version of
a neuroband.

“I can't think of
a better time for your test drive,” she said, drawing the band through her hair
and around her head.

With a broad swipe
across the workstation’s screen, Ashley opened up a tiered network connection.
She first tapped into the lab experiment still resting in the back of the
duck.  Giving it access to the ship's system, Ashley took her first shot
at Dominic. Using the connection between the ship and Wispy, Ashley smashed
through Dominic's remote safeguards and took over control of Wispy.

She immediately
issued a command to Wispy to set the ship on standby and open all doors.
Ashley knew she would likely have seconds before Dominic or his software would
respond.  She used brute force protocols to blast her way into New China's
computers using the established connection through Wispy.

“It’s time to place
my order in person,” Ashley challenged.

Initiating the
routines on her lab experiment, she closed her eyes and waited for her
consciousness to fly across the network. A blinding flash transitioned her
consciousness to the communication room of New China. Ashley's projection stood
in the hidden control room of New China.  The room was filled with a dozen
vidcomm's that were broadcasting a message from Dominic. He stood in the room
gloating over his plan in process.  Dominic was cheering for his own
speech and agreeing with many of his own statements.

As though he
sensed a person in the room, Dominic turned to face her.

“I hope your hands
aren't too cold tonight,” Dominic smirked as he greeted her. “I'd hate to see
you in any distress.”

Ashley strode
straight for Dominic challenging him. “Why don't you feel them yourself?”
Using an uppercut she had learned in John's defense class, she thrust her arm
upwards connecting right below his jaw.  Dominic was caught completely
off-guard as the blow landed with the might of a heavyweight boxer.

Dominic recognized
the deadly significance of her swing. Like him, Ashley had removed any sort of
governor from her own neuroband.  Her punches were physically imaginary
but not to his synapse. The electrically charged haymaker could have seriously
injured him.  Dominic threw his arms up in a vain attempt to deflect her
next strike. It was a reaction that he knew would not work. His mind, however,
blocked her punch leaving him unharmed. Fearing for his own life he had given
him the tools to defend himself.

Dominic took to
the offensive, lashing out with his anger.  Though he had the ability, he
was matched against a practiced opponent. Ashley waived off his attack with
ease and delivered a counter.  Recognizing that his move was ineffective,
Dominic's eyes opened wide as another uppercut struck him squarely under his
jaw.

Dominic staggered
backward, dropping to one knee.  The guards stationed inside the room
moved to his side and yelled at one another to identify the assailant.
With another blow connecting, this time a right cross, he dropped to the floor
in a prone position.

“Ashley please,”
he cried out. “Take mercy on me! You know the demons I battle.” Dominic raised
a wavering hand as though to shield himself.

Ashley dropped to
a knee beside him, fist poised above him to strike.

“I let you live
and you'll come back.  You'll come back and take something or someone I
care about.  Why should I let you do that?” Ashley raised her fist higher
as though preparing to finish him.

In that moment,
inexplicably to her, the guards in the room suddenly turned on each
other.  They shouted commands to stand down, put down weapons, and
surrender.  One by one they opened fire on one another.  Within the
minute, all of them were unconscious on the floor seemingly from their own
doing.

Ashley couldn't
help but pause for this event.  She moved her knee to Dominic's throat
mentally pinning him while trying to understand what had occurred.  A
concealed door opened from the side of the room. Emerging from the opening were
Stephanie and … Elizabeth.

The two of them
approached Dominic, clearly confused with the circumstances.  Ashley
pushed her thoughts allowing Stephanie to see her projection.

As though having
the lights turned on, Stephanie suddenly could see her step-mother restraining
Dominic on the floor. She alerted Elizabeth who was trying to grasp the
situation.

“Mom has him
pinned down!” she called to Elizabeth, rushing over to Ashley's side.

“We were just
coming down the tunnel when we heard the shouting,” Stephanie relayed.

Stephanie's words
caught Ashley completely off-guard as her use of “Mom” was powerful enough to
sap her fury. She was no longer possessed by one overriding thought.

With her free arm,
Ashley gave Stephanie a small hug. Though the embrace was ethereal, its
significance was very real.

That slight
opening was all Dominic needed to reverse his fortune.  Recognizing that
he was outmatched by Ashley, he turned his will to her Achilles' heel. With a
desperate force of will he thrust a stunning mental blast upon Stephanie.
Ashley’s knee was lifted from his throat as she instinctually tried to catch
her daughter.  Stephanie fell prone to the floor grasping her head in
pain.

“I admit that was
well played,” Dominic related to Ashley.  “But you have too many pawns on
the board you care about to best me.” Standing up Dominic moved to Stephanie’s
side.

“So how many IQ
points will you cost your daughter?” Dominic threatened Ashley indirectly.
“It’s only a matter of reaching in and twisting that beautiful cortex of hers.”

Ashley’s eyes
opened wide at his threat. Knowing he had already plotted their death once, she
didn’t try for an appeal of mercy.

“If you hurt her
Dom, you’ll never have me. Do you understand? Never,” Ashley hoped there was
still some fragment of twisted affection in his heart.

Dominic laughed
heartily. “After the embarrassment you’ve caused me, you think I still have
feelings for you.  After risking my station over and over, only to be
crushed by you, you think that I still care?”

Caught in the
intensity of the moment, neither one of them noticed Elizabeth slowly circling
behind them.

“Why couldn’t you
find someone else Dom?” Ashley tried desperately to give herself time to think.

Rushing next to
her Dominic spit his remarks. “Because it was only you! Just you! How could you
not know?”

Having made her
way behind Dominic, Liz reached up and in one well timed motion grasped the
neuroband off his head.

Dominic spun
around, looking at Liz in shock as his headband rested in her hand.

“Here’s something
I know,” Liz said as she delivered a driving knee straight to his groin. “Never
come between a mother and her daughter!”  Falling to the ground in
excruciating pain, Dominic had nothing else to say.  Elizabeth rolled over
one of the guards and grabbed the pistol from him, just in case.

Ashley
brought Elizabeth into her circle of thought.

“Well I guess we
found something else in common,” Ashley smiled at Liz.

Elizabeth agreed.
“More than a boy scout and a delusional psychopath you mean?”

Both exchanged a
laugh of truce.

Turning to
Stephanie, Ashley said impatiently. “Now if we could just get your father to
take out the trash. It would be nice if I didn’t have to do everything around
here. I don't suppose you've seen him?”

“He's supposed to
be meeting us here,” Stephanie replied. “I'm not entirely sure how he's going
to reach us.”

Almost on cue, the
main doors to the room came under the assault of several plasma bursts. They
buckled under the intense fire, collapsing into the room.  Charging into
the opening was Jonathon Quinn and his hoard of mining friends.

“So glad you could
join us now that we have everything taken care of,” Elizabeth motioned to
Dominic.

“Everything?” John
replied raising an eyebrow. “Such as engaging an entire city of people?
Some who were quite bent on the idea of shooting at us until we convinced them
otherwise?”

“Minor details,”
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders in her own brand of humor.

John was about to
continue the banter when he noticed Stephanie and Ashley beside an unconscious
Dominic.  He left Elizabeth standing in the open and walked over to them,
taking stock of the situation.

“Hi there,” John
greeted them. “I should have known all that training would pay off in the
end.  Consider yourselves promoted to black belts in mental-jitsu.”

“I thought it was
called brain-fu?” Stephanie questioned him.

“Oh, that's an
entirely different branch of training,” John replied. “Very advanced…you're not
ready for that yet.”

As John continued
to speak with them, Ashley developed a puzzled look on her face.

“John,” she
addressed him, “how exactly do you know I'm here?  I haven't included you
in my circle of thought, my experiment circle, from back in the lab.”

John raised a
different eyebrow this time, responding. “Um…see that's a good example of
brain-fu.  A master never teaches his students all his secrets.”

Stephanie and
Ashley looked at each other, rolling their eyes simultaneously.

Ashley could feel
a tug on her leg. It was somehow familiar, but no one was there. It dawned on
her that she wasn't really there, but there was girl back at the mining camp
that had been an expert leg tugger.

"I have to
get back," Ashley told them. "Try not to get into any more trouble,
at least for a few hours."

As she faded, John
smiled and blew her a kiss. Ashley felt it on her cheek.

Elizabeth strode
over to the remaining pair by Dominic.

“If you're done
with your fu fu, we need to have a serious discussion here,” Elizabeth stated.

John's
lightheartedness left with her words.  He recalled the serious issues he
had come to discuss.

“A wise insight
indeed, O-Sophia,” John agreed while motioning toward the numerous miners in
the room.  “There’re some major concerns that we need to discuss with my
new friends here. You're going to love whom they've elected their union
leader."

Chapter 48  Through the Double Doors

The communications
room had been cleared of everyone except for John and Elizabeth. Stephanie and
Shu Han were tasked with coordinating the guard to restore peace in the
city.  Dominic was taken under custody by members of Elizabeth's restored
guard and moved into the next room. He was placed in a protective suit to
prevent any “accidents” before his trial.

“I can't believe
I'm agreeing to this,” Elizabeth said throwing her hands up in the air.

John pointed to
the vidcomms in the room displaying the crowds that had gathered citywide.

“Look at them,”
John replied. “They deserve this.  We may not be able to fix the problems
back on Earth or even on the rest of Mars, but we can at least give them a
chance to fix their own city.”

Elizabeth stopped
and turned back toward John.

“Do you know why
your father wanted you to stay?” Elizabeth started to ask. “Why the great
senator would even think of compromising his principles to that end?”

John was clearly
caught off-guard at her line of questioning, standing silent.

“Because he saw
his father in you,” she answered her own question.  “That unyielding sense
of hope and optimism you run around with.  I've no doubt he saw you as the
caretaker of his father's dreams, a future president.”

“I tried to
protect my grandfather's dream, but in my own way,” John answered the unspoken
charge. “I worked to bring his dream to life, to follow it through, and to see
it succeed.”

The fire inside
him grew as he pointed toward the vidcomms in the room.

“I'm not finished
with that task,” John stated firmly. “In fact, I think our work...their work
has just begun.”

Elizabeth walked
up to John and gave him a surprise kiss on the cheek.

“That's a truth I
can live with,” she said.  The two of them shook with both hands.

The crowd noise
from outside nearly masked the page coming in from John's Ksync.  Catching
the flashing light, John removed the device from his belt and answered, “Hello
there. Are you making your way to the city yet?”

“Not yet,” Ashley
replied. “I had to tie in the feed to New China. It's set to go.”

“How's Jessica?”
John asked.

“Just thank god
ten-year-olds are fast healers in many ways,” she answered.  “I think
Wispy and her are on their way to being buddies again.”

John seemed
heartened by the news concerning his daughter. The volume from the crowd chants
made conversation difficult. John signed off in typical fashion. “Ashley, I'd
better go. You know the people love me.”

Ashley blew him a
kiss across the vidcomm and ended with. “Go, give them their hope back.”

John and Elizabeth
stepped through the opening in what remained of the double doors.
Outside, a balcony area overlooked the entire center of the city as it sprawled
down each level.  At the bottom of the circular decent rested a massive
park.  Staircases swept down each side of the balcony, stopping off at
each level before continuing their descent to the park below.

All the cities
vidcomms displayed an image of John and Liz standing on the balcony.
Their waives and smiles brought out cheers across the city, echoing from every
corner.  Among many of the shops and buildings, cries of “O- Sophia” stuck
out from the mass of cheers.

Unbeknownst to the
crowd, John's final swooping wave was a signal to the comm center. The vidcomms
across the city went dark.  When they came back on, the feed was not of
John and Elizabeth, but of Dominic.  He was sitting at a workstation
inside the communication room they had emerged from.  Behind him were the
vidcomms that watched over every corner of the city.   A guard walked
behind him in the distance.  The sound was soft, but able to be heard.

“You are like
roaches,” Dominic said. “No matter how hard I stomp, you keep coming
back.  I can hear your laughs from here, but you won't be laughing much
longer.”

The picture then
switched to the cargo area of a ship.  Only a few people recognized it as
hold of The Compromise. The video’s perspective lifted as if hovering slightly
in the air and then moved toward the cockpit of the vehicle.  Sitting in
pilot's chair was a man dressed in a modified MARC uniform and a small
girl.  They were clearly both cheering about something.

The video went on
to play the exchange of words between Dominic and Tyler. At one part, however, the
video switched back to Dominic. “It’s a shame your sense of wit escaped orbit,”
Dominic insulted him. “Maybe I can take care of that oversight now.”

Various gasps and
moans were collectively heard as the crowds watched Tyler being shocked into
unconsciousness and Jessica running off screaming.  The video feed then
went blank, returning once again with a view of John and Elizabeth.  The
city held its collective breath in silence as Elizabeth moved forward to speak.

“When I arrived in
New China, I found a broken city full of a broken people,” Elizabeth began.
“Somehow, the basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness had
all but disappeared.  It can be argued they were taken away or given away,
but the reality was they were lost.”

“All that was left
was a need. A starvation in the bellies of people, worse than their pangs of
hunger,” Elizabeth continued. “We were able to feed that hunger. With your
help, The Order emerged to provide the basic needs for every citizen of New
China.”

“I'm so proud of
the changes we made,” she elaborated. “People counted again. From freeing the
small children forced to work the mines to assisting the shop owners working
twenty hour days, we restored the lives of people.  For those crimes, I
blamed the governments of Earth.”

Pointing up toward
the dome’s ceiling Elizabeth's voice rose. “Someone up there, back on Earth
took your freedom and traded it for their gain… or at least that’s the easy way
to see things.  It was the singular perspective I held... until I was forced
by my circumstances to reach beyond what I was firmly convinced and see more.”

Placing her hand
upon John's shoulder, she looked at him and smiled.

“Can you imagine
how remarkable it was to me, to have my eyes opened by a person who embodied
the very government I despised?” remarked O-Sophia.

She finished. “As
I’ve been gifted this new perspective, so shall you.  I give you Jonathon
Quinn, Commander of the MARC Sentinels, and grandson of the great architect
himself President Joseph Quinn.”

Murmurs of
confusion throughout the city were the only greetings John received.

John looked out
across the tiers of the dome. The sheer mass of people before him was daunting
in itself, let alone the task of finding the right words for this moment.
He smiled and waved, thinking back to the days when he had watched his
grandfather give speeches.  His poise, coupled with a comforting voice,
were important attributes John retrieved from his memory. He drew upon these
traits as he started to speak:

Months
ago, I set out with my family for Mars. My intent was to settle in a new land
and provide my family with a future of possibilities.  That course was
changed when the colonists that I sailed with were attacked by the efforts of a
saboteur, the man you just saw, Dr. Dominic Andreou.

The murmurs of the
crowd were replaced in part with jeers for the leader.

It
was through his actions that O-Sophia, discovered firsthand a folly of her
government. The folly was found even in a government having the best of
intentions for its people. You see, the wisdom of the counsel was great, but it
rested in the hands of too few.  So few in fact, that the will of one man
quickly subdued the will of the entire counsel.  A masquerade was carried
out by this dictator in disguise.  Hiding behind an illegitimate title
this man retained his power through bribery, deceit, and betrayal. With the
freedoms that were traded for food and coin, the people of this great city
squandered their ability to see the truth.

Now
that the curtain has been lifted on this charade, the people of this city must
retake a singular democratic truth. The rights of the people must rest firmly
in your hands, not ours.  If you choose to entrust the safety of your
rights to others, then it becomes your duty to watch and consider their actions
with vigilance. You cannot drift off in a haze of apathy or live a life of
luxury while others feed you a daily meal of half-truths.

For the first time
since John began, voices of support, and cheers were heard in the crowd.
“Ultimately, the responsibility is yours.” John wound his speech to a close.
“Do you give full trust and confidence to what is said through the filter of
these vidcomms? Or do you make discovery of truth part of your daily duty as a
protector and citizen of freedom?”

John walked to the
furthest edge of the balcony as he finished. “Lincoln said that, ‘…a government
of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from Earth.’
I say let us carry the torch of freedom from Earth to Mars.   The
light of freedom will shine brighter between two worlds than one world alone.
You shall have another chance to craft your future New China. May you forge one
stronger than the last, mindful of your democratic heritage and vigilant of
your children’s future.”

The crowd’s
enthusiasm had peaked with his last statements. John and Elizabeth waved to the
happy crowds.  As they walked down the steps to the central park they were
followed by footsteps once again echoing the sounds of freedom.

Epilogue

The crew of The
Compromise gathered around an old fashioned campfire outside the mining
complex. The weather was cooperating for the evening meal. It consisted of
barbeque ribs and chicken, cooked up by the resident expert Chef John.  A
large bag of what was supposed to be marshmallows had been procured from the
city and was awaiting a chocolate and graham cracker fate.  Captain
Sterling and her wingman Lieutenant Summers had found a strip to land their
planes and were staying over for the feast. The rest of the crew was spread out
all around the campfire, laughing and talking. Wispy and Jessica were up to
their old game of hide and seek around the duck…even Stephanie decided to give
in and play.  Ashley was pulled up close to the fire in a make-shift lounge
chair drinking a beverage.  Tyler and Kyle seemed to be taking turns
entertaining Glennay with alternating stories of misadventure.

Holding down the
campfire proper were John and Anita.

“So John,” Anita
asked, as she nibbled on a wing, “you plan on becoming a gentleman farmer now?”

Turning a long
stick of meat that was propped near the fire, he replied. “I remember a show my
grandfather used to watch called Bonanza.  I can’t really remember
the names of the characters or really too much at all about the show except for
the feeling that I had watching it.
The ranchers were nice
people. They seemed well off with a big ranch and lots of money, but that
didn’t stop them for pitching in and helping others out in need.  There’s
something to that idea about caring for others you don’t even know, caring just
because it’s the right thing to do. That idea always stuck with me.  I
think it’s why Grandpa Joe liked it too.”

John paused for a
second, as though something was coming back to him and continued, “That’s right!
Little Joe and Grandpa Joe. I think he had one of those brown vests with a tin
badge on it, a Sheriff’s badge maybe.”

Turning to the
expanse of land in the distance John pointed out the terrain saying, “I think
the Ponderosa they lived on was something like a half million acres.  From
what I see, I’m looking at a larger stretch of land than even the Cartwrights
could dream of taming.”

Walking over to a
nearby bench, John reached down and picked up his Aussie hat.

“You know,
Captain,” John said flipping his hat on his head. “I think maybe you’re looking
at a cattle rancher the likes of which have yet to be seen.”

Not to be outdone
by his own wit, John motioned his miner friend Shu Han over to them. Putting
his arm around the man’s shoulder and turning toward the captain, John
activated his Ksync and asked. “You’re pretty good with those claws aren’t
you?”

The miner gave
John a funny look as though he didn’t understand.

He continued. “If
I'm little Joe then we still need a Hoss on the ranch. Care to join up?”

The miner gave an
odd laugh as he shrugged his shoulders, clearly without any reference point for
the offer.

Anita shook her
head and smiled just as lost with the reference as the miner.

"I'll take
that as a yes," John said patting Shu on the back. "Now who could
possibly be Ben?" he asked staring at Anita.

Before John could
dig his hole any deeper, a flash of light streaked across the sky above
them.  Looking up, they saw a shooting star fade in the distance, but
their attention was drawn to Phobos as it passed through the night sky. In the
distance, another bright light glimmered in the night sky, Earth.

“What do you think
is going on up there?” Anita asked John, looking upwards into the night sky.

John looked to the
stars, the lines of his face taking a serious turn.

“I wish I knew,”
John replied.  “I only hope that the fires on the home front are still
burning bright.”

“Me too,” Anita
agreed.

John wondered what
he would see if he could peer through the darkness to his former home. A
chilling breeze caught them both as it sailed upon air currents into the sky.
Flying higher and higher it rose until its chill was replaced by the darkness
of space. Through the vastness it travelled until reaching a sister planet
named Earth.  A different chill circled this planet. Ships of cold steel,
crafted not from hope but from greed, were fashioned in space. They would soon
set sail loaded with plans for the landscape of Mars. Gentleman farming was not
one of them.