“Jozi is being healed as we speak,” answered Gragas, bending down and placing his hand on Ozzy’s back. “She’ll take a little more than an hour, unlike you.”
Ozzy lifted his head, staring at Gragas’s masked face. “An hour?”
“Yes, your cells replenished and healed your injuries in forty-eight minutes.”
Ozzy’s mouth gaped open. “That’s impossible.”
“We are advanced.”
Ozzy glanced around. “I see that.” Several other biped, human-like men and women aliens stood with their arms and hands folded in front of them, wearing different colored armor, helmets, and masks, which were the same shape and style that Gragas wore.
But who knew. Maybe they were all human, and Gragas was the only alien.
“Where are we going?” inquired Ozzy.
Gragas walked over to his cockpit and sat. He stared out at the red Martian landscape. They were moving, but very slowly. “We are en route to Moonshinka Rock. We’ll need your stealth indigo rock hooked up soon.”
Ozzy dipped his head to the side. “How do you know about my indigo rock?”
“It’s one of a handful in the Galaxy. The Elder’s built them and wrote about them long ago, but yours is the only one we know that has ever been recovered. Where did you find it?”
Ozzy spit more black liquid out of his mouth. “Yeah, I’m not that easy. You mind giving me my clothes now?”
Gragas gestured toward one of his Galactic Knights. “Show him to the showers and his clothes. Then, Ozzy, you’ll tell us where the passage is to the cure. My guys will sneak into the city of Dawes from there. We’ll place detonation charges under Dawes and erase the Dunrakee off this planet’s map.”
“You have my briefcase with the Ancient Coptic tablet, correct?”
“Yes,” replied Gragas.
Ozzy stood.
This was all strange, and the black gunk he had been floating in somehow showed him visions of what happened to his daughter.
It was all he needed to know. She was dead, and he wasn’t participating in this effort anymore.
His mind was changed, and a storm was beginning to rise inside him. “You’ll be going to the Moonshinka Rock yourselves. I’m going my own way from now on.”
Gragas hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“You get the cure. You have everything you need to find it. You have the equipment, the manpower, and the energy. I have nothing…not anymore.”
Gragas folded his arms across his chest. “That’s not why we’re here. We are going to set Dawes on fire from beneath the city to end these Dunrakee terrorists, but only after you retrieve what you need. From there, we part ways.”
Ozzy paused. “You light them on fire, then you light the human population that has been captured at Dawes on fire.”
“The Dunrakee terrorists have already done that. The only inhabitants left at Dawes are the Dunrakee.”
Ozzy flung his hand to his mouth, covering it. He was done with this shit. Death was everywhere, and he didn’t want any more part in it. “Show me to the showers, Mr. Galactic Knight, and then take me to Jozi.”
He’d give her a thank you and be on his way off this ship.
26
En route to Dawes, Mars
Ozzy dried himself off with a towel, happy to rid himself of the black gunk. He stared into a mirror, checking out his back the best he could.
No scars and no indication that a photon blast ever hit him. How the hell did these Galactic Knights pull this off? The Martian doctors were good but not this good or this fast.
He dropped the towel and pulled on his jumpsuit, getting ready for his next mission—seeking revenge.
Gragas walked in, holding the tablet. “You’re coming along.”
Ozzy chuckled. “Yeah, right.” He bent down and laced up his boots.
“You’ve decoded the tablet, correct?”
Ozzy took a few glances at it, but decoding the map and finding exactly where the entrance to the underground cure was…well…he never made it that far. “Nope.”
Gragas cocked his head. “If you’re not going to join us, then I ask you to please decode the tablet for us.”
Footsteps echoed into the room, and Jozi rounded the corner, eyeing Ozzy like he was a demon in disguise. She spit at his feet. “You disgust me. You won’t finish this mission? You selfish piece of no good—”
Ozzy waved his hand in the air, cutting her off. “Save it, sweetheart. I have bigger fish to fry.”
Jozi crossed her arms. “You have nothing to fry. You’re broke and don’t even have a shovel to dig your own grave.”
Ozzy scoffed. “I’ve never needed a shovel.”
She walked up to him and poked his chest. “I saved your ass to save the world.” Her lip quivered with fury. “And you repay me by running away? You’re not only a shitty person, but you’re also a shitty father.”
Ozzy curled his fingers and stood straighter. “You spoiled little agent. Like I said before, you have no idea what it’s like to be a parent, let alone one who has lost their only child. She is dead because of this mission and dead because of the High Judge.”
“You don’t know that,” Jozi yelled.
“She is. I saw it in the High Judge’s eyes. I saw it in my own daughter’s eyes. He’ll pay dearly with his life.” He cleared his throat, clearing a cry along with it. “And that’s where I’m headed, sister, to Robert Baldwin, wherever he may be.”
Jozi grabbed his jumpsuit at the collar and twisted. She shoved him back against a wall, speaking quietly, but confidently. “You will finish this mission, and we will save these people. After that, you do as you wish. I hope you leave Mars and never come back, but until then, we are getting the cure.”
Ozzy went to push Jozi away. She caught his arm, slid her hand down to his wrist, and torqued it. To avoid pain and a broken arm, Ozzy’s body spun around as if on autopilot. The movement placed him face-first into a wall, and Jozi’s body pushed into his back.
“Think of your daughter, Ozzy. Think about the pain you feel when you picture her. Now, think of all the fathers that will have that pain as well if we do not get this cure.” She let go of his arm and marched out of the room, yelling over her shoulder, “Think with your heart, Ozzy. For one damn second, think with your heart.”
Ozzy turned around, watching her walk past Gragas and disappear around the corner. He shook his arm out, trying to get the circulation going again. “Give me the Ancient Coptic tablet. I’ll decipher it for you, and then you can be on your way.”
“Ozzy,” replied Gragas. “The black fluid you were floating in can bring out your worst fears. It acts like a shedding to repair your cells. It pulls as much negativity from your body as it can, and sometimes that can include your thoughts or imagination. Did you see something about your daughter while you were in the liquid?”
“It wasn’t what I saw, it was what I felt. I know that she has left this world.”
Gragas went to talk. Ozzy put his hand up, making sure he didn’t speak. His mind was made up, and he knew what he felt. He knew it deep down in his bones.
“Again, give me the tablet, and I will give you the full translation.”
“Under what condition?” inquired Gragas.
“How do you know there will be a condition?”
“I’ve heard from Jonas Moon that there’s always a condition with you.”
Ozzy cocked his head to the side. Why would Jonas tell him that, and for what? But, right now, what was the use in asking? “Twenty million auric credits. Then you can drop me off at the nearest city that isn’t named Dawes, and I’ll be on my way to finding the High Judge.”
“Are you sure?” Gragas leaned back against the wall, crossing one foot in front of the other.
“Positive.”
“I only have a quarter of that.”
“I’ll take it.”
27
Lanlee Junction, Mars
The Martian Z-ionic Five Cell Puma vi
brated as it hovered and waited in one of Lanlee’s holding docks to enter the city through the underground tubes to drop Ozzy off. It was one of the few cities that were allowing people inside, being as it was so far away from the other cities being rampaged by the Martian Plague.
It was a commerce city, so they tended to like money more than they should. Money above health was inevitably going to kill them someday and probably soon.
A high-pitched whine encapsulated the main cabin.
“You should get this thing in for a tune-up, Gragas,” said Ozzy.
Ozzy was sitting at a table across from Gragas. Ozzy checked his auric wallet. The funds were there. He motioned with his fingers to one of the Galactic Knights holding the briefcase. “I’m ready.”
The Knight set the briefcase on the table next to Ozzy.
“And about that stealth rock?” reminded Gragas. “When are you going to hook it up for us? We want to be ghosts flying if you catch my drift. I don’t know if we’ll be as successful if we don’t have it. Don’t worry. I will return it.”
Ozzy’s eyes widened. “I didn’t agree to that. Indigo remains with me.”
Gragas nodded, his voice low. “Of course.” He tapped the briefcase.
Ozzy opened it, eyeing the shiny gold tablet before him. It was a beauty, and if he were just a little more of a selfish prick, he’d steal the sucker and sell it to the highest bidder on the black market.
He ran his fingers over the engravings, feeling the pictographs: a hook-like character with the Phobos moon; an Ancient Coptic lamp with a five-pointed star inside; nine greater-than-angle-bracket signs pointing to the right; and four upside-down circumflexes. It was easy to decode. “Not all of it is under Dawes. It spreads out east.” He looked up. “You want the good news or the bad news first?”
“The bad,” responded Gragas, leaning back in his chair.
“You’ll need a shitload of oxygen for your battlesuits—or whatever those uniforms you wear are called—because you’ll be outside. You’ll also need a diamond-tipped granite drill and an underground mole digger to tunnel yourselves to this cure.”
Gragas sighed. “We can manage. The good news?”
How in Mars’s plumber’s hole could they manage that? He shrugged, it didn’t matter to him at this point. “The good news is that the entrance, which you’ll have to blow apart, is half a klick west of Dawes. You’ll notice rocks…” he paused, looking at the tablet’s Coptic glyphs, nodding to himself, remembering the Moonshinka-shaped rock. “Yes, the Moonshinka Rock’s mouth is the entrance.”
“What does the Moonshinka Rock actually look like?” asked Gragas.
“It was an ancient Mars wild cat before Mars’s atmosphere was somehow blown off this planet. It was a ridiculously giant cat. Its jaws were wide, and its front upper fangs hung past its mouth. You’ll see the fangs, the eyes, and the muzzle engraved into the rock. I’ve seen it before on many of my excursions in the outlawed zones in that area, so unless you’re blind, you can’t miss it.”
Gragas leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. “I know that the Ancient Coptic Martians made it easier to get inside places. Blowing it up or tunneling through isn’t easy. It’s not the way the Ancients built structures. The entrances are built like a puzzle.”
Damn.
Ozzy didn’t want it to come to this, but, unfortunately, it did. He’d have to lie. He pursed his lips together, faking a frown as best he could. “Not this one.”
Gragas gave him a long stare.
“We know you’re lying,” said Jozi, walking into the room, her eyes narrowed. “I know that if you were there, you could open the puzzle by following the glyphs that are probably all around that place, couldn’t you?”
What she said was true.
A beep sounded in the room, and a voice came over the com line. “You have permission to enter and land. Welcome to Lanlee Junction.”
Ozzy pushed up from the table. “I’ve given you everything you need. Now give me my rifle, my EVA, and Indigo. It’s time for me to go.”
The Galactic Knights shifted uncomfortably in the room. They wanted his help, not his departure.
Gragas stood as well and extended his hand for a human-custom handshake. Ozzy took it.
“Okay, Ozzy. You can leave. Soon as you do, we’ll be off and landing next to the Moonshinka Rock. It shall take us twenty minutes to get there. I hope you wish us luck. And we wish you the same.”
In twenty minutes? That was faster than his old Relic could fly. Hell, in his craft, it would take forty minutes at top speed.
Speaking of which, he’d have to buy another S-4 Jumper here at Lanlee Junction. It wouldn’t get him off this planet, but it would get him on his way to the High Judge.
He planted his eyes on Jozi. “Did you call your scientist friend through the teleporter? I think Connie Willis was her name?”
She lowered her eyes, her anger dispersing a little. “I did.”
His stomach fluttered, and it wasn’t a good flutter. From her expression, she had learned something bad, and he didn’t want to hear about his daughter’s death from Jozi’s lips. His visions and feelings were right. “Okay, that’s all I need to know.”
She frantically shook her head and flared her nostrils. Her tone deepened. “No, that’s not it. Connie wasn’t there when I turned on the teleporter.”
“Well, who was?”
“No one.”
The scientists were probably dead as well, along with all those who dwelled in Gale Crater City.
Ozzy nodded. “I’ll wait in another room until we land.”
Ozzy walked across a Lanlee Junction hovercar expressway intersection. He stepped onto the sidewalk on the other side, heading to his destination—a craft dealership.
He checked the time. It’d been almost twenty minutes since Gragas had dropped him off. They should be at Moonshinka Rock by now.
He shook his head. What the Galactic Knights and Jozi were attempting to do was nothing short of a suicide run.
Should the terrorists spot them, they outnumbered the Galactic Knights a hundred to one.
He shouldn’t have let them go. He should have convinced them to stay here in Lanlee Junction. But he got what he wanted—money to buy a ship. They got what they wanted—the exact location to the cure and a way under Dawes to blow the Dunrakee scum to Deimos and back.
He held down the urge to fly after them and tow them back to safety. They didn’t have Indigo, and Indigo would have kept them off all radar, especially off of the Dunrakee terrorist’s tracking systems. If he hadn’t been such an ass and downright depressed, he would have been in a better frame of mind and let them use Indigo.
Yet, it was one of his most prized possessions. It was probably better he kept it to himself.
He let out a huff, pushing away those thoughts and keeping his mind on the Lanlee Junction inner city. He hadn’t been here before, purposely avoiding it. It should be called the sex-and-suit-your-every-need city if anything. It was full of maid and butler robots, sex robots, love hotels, and artificial intelligence computers debating the current political and medical landscapes.
He walked by a holoscreen set against a building. The Ministry news was playing. “Another city rampaged by the Martian Plague, but the Ministry…” Ozzy paid it no mind and continued walking. Any more of this would just remind him of Lily.
He held his duffle bag over his shoulder, fully packed with his EVA, Indigo, and his rifle. He put his hand in his pocket, feeling his auric wallet.
A craft dealership was up ahead, displaying ships of all types in its vast parking lot. A holoscreen was on the front of the building, blinking holographic advertisements to everyone walking or driving by, which weren’t many.
The Martian Plague had everyone spooked, even a commerce sex city like this.
Ozzy walked past another holoscreen displaying more news.
“This just in, a crash near Dawes has the Ministry blaming the Dunrakee for yet another terrorist
attack. These are becoming more…”
He shook his head. “Idiots.”
He strode by a fourth holoscreen. “Yes, John, it was a Martian Z-ionic Five Cell Puma. Our satellites show energy signatures of life forms inside. It’s in one of the outlawed zones. The Ministry is not sending anyone out for a rescue…”
Ozzy stopped and looked around. The breaking news was on all the buildings’ walls.
He walked closer to a nearby holoscreen and slumped. “Son of a Mars. Really?”
He stepped forward. Now he knew, and without a doubt, that Jozi and Gragas were in harm’s way.
He grunted and stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for a few hovercars to drive by so he could cross the road.
“Don’t do it, Ozzy. Don’t do it,” he told himself. “Your goal is now the High Judge.”
But he couldn’t let Jozi and the rest of those robot-faced weirdos die out there. They weren’t his friends, but they were his responsibility—in a way.
He dismissed his weak thoughts and stepped onto the sidewalk.
He halted at another holoscreen. “And a few are walking out of the craft right now. We’re not sure if the Dunrakee shot them down or if it was just a malfunction, but we are getting reports that these aren’t humans, so there will not be a rescue effort employed.”
“There is one human, dumbass,” said Ozzy through gritted teeth. “Dammit,” he growled. He nodded. His mind was set. “Screw it.” He was going after them.
He walked into the craft dealership, gripping the duffle bag tightly. He was greeted by a lone man happy to be of assistance and to probably sell him the most expensive airboat he could find.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“How can I—”
“Where is everyone?”
“The rest of my crew is at home, more or less hiding from the Martian Plague.” He let out a curt laugh. “It’ll be cured before it gets here. They’re being silly.”
Martian Quadrilogy Box Set Page 16