She nodded, her teeth clacking together and her lips blue from the cold. “Will do.”
He unstrapped and hurried to the back of the craft. Indigo was sitting against the wall. He grabbed it and set it on his chair.
The Miner vibrated more the deeper they went.
He ducked under the flight console and studied the wires. He traced the red and yellow ones then pushed himself out from under the console. “I need the wire cutters.”
The Miner stopped moving, and the engines revved louder. Ozzy shot Jozi a look. “What’s going on?”
She put up her hands. “I’m twenty meters under. How do I move forward?”
Ozzy checked his oxygen gauge. Six minutes. He wanted to get the Miner horizontally tunneling before he hooked his suit to the oxygen tanks.
He swiped his hand over an application on the lower right screen. He tapped PARALLEL TO GROUND. That would put the Miner on autopilot and move them in the right direction.
The Miner groaned, and the wheels protracted from the sides. The craft tipped back slightly, and the exterior walls shifted, the cockpit and cabin remaining in the same place, unlike the rest of the craft.
The Miner moaned.
The belly made a quarter revolution. The drills were now pointing forward instead of downward.
The diamond-tipped drills turned on, whining and cracking rock in front of them. The Miner shuddered and trekked onward, throwing sand and dirt behind it.
Ozzy looked at his wrist gauge. Only twenty-eight seconds until his EVA oxygen was fully drained.
“I gotta hurry.”
He grabbed Jozi. She was shivering. “We’re hooking you up.” He dragged her toward the back of the ship, her boot heels sliding across the floor.
He sat her next to the tool rack, pulled out a tube, and connected it to her chest. He twisted until he heard a click, locking it in place. He flipped on the oxygen lever, which filled her EVA oxygen tank.
Pssssst!
His oxygen snipped off. His EVA was empty, along with the cabin and cockpit’s air supply. Oxygen inside wasn’t an option in an S-99 Flying Miner. To man these things, you always needed a fully loaded EVA suit.
He held his breath, pulling out another tube. A small gush of air pushed out of his mouth.
Crap.
He connected the tube to his chest and twisted.
Another gush of air expelled from his lips.
Jozi took in a deep sniff. “I only had a few minutes left. Thank you. It’s resetting my thermostat, too. I’m warming up.”
Ozzy nodded, feeling his hands and fingers going numb.
He gulped, holding his breath because he had no oxygen to breathe.
He reached for the oxygen lever to fill his tank. His vision was blurry. He couldn’t find the lever. He wanted to talk, to tell Jozi to flip it on for him, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out except more air.
His hands went limp.
He reached out again, trying to push the lever down. He missed.
He could feel his heart slowing. He wanted to do nothing more than to take a breath.
He tapped Jozi or what he thought was her. He saw movement through his blurry eyes, and words he couldn’t comprehend blared through his helmet com line.
His eyes widened. A few more seconds and he was a goner.
Pch-shooo!
Fresh airflow blew into his face. He blinked and gasped for breath, wheezing and coughing.
He leaned over in a fit of pain, his lungs burning. He took several deep breaths.
Vomit started to rise, and he swallowed hard, pushing it back down. The last thing he needed was to throw up and fill his helmet.
“Ozzy?” Jozi rubbed his back.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.” His stomach pains subsided. “That. . .was close.”
He leaned back, resting on the floor, and checked his gauge. His oxygen was filling up. In a matter of minutes, he’d have over twenty hours worth of air before his oxygen tanks hit empty once again.
Ozzy unclipped. His tank was full.
Jozi’s oxygen tank had filled up a few moments before, and she was now sitting at the cockpit, watching the digger push rock and dirt away, moving along like the long-forgotten moles must have done on Earth.
He grabbed a wire cutter from the rack above a workbench, thinking about his brother and his daughter. His brother was dead, and he forced down a yell. And, to make matters worse, Jozi was the next target of Robert’s threat.
How did he screw up his life and the lives of his friends and family so much?
Ozzy walked over to the pilot’s seat and went to his hands and knees, ducking under the flight console.
He clipped the yellow and red wires, remembering a time when he was with Lou and repairing Lou’s hovercar.
Lily was four at the time and came into the garage, curious. Lou was gentle with her and showed her what every part was and how the ionic engines worked.
Ozzy was impressed and imagined that’s how Lou was with his workers in the mine. He was probably an incredible boss, and his employees no doubt loved him.
And were probably mourning his death right at this moment.
Ozzy clipped a white wire.
The holographic display blipped off.
“What happened?” asked Jozi.
“Don’t worry about it.” He took Indigo off his seat and set it down beside him. He stripped the wires and pressed them against Indigo, holding them onto Indigo’s rocky surface for a few seconds.
The wires sucked in like magic, connecting themselves the way wires always did with Indigo. Even though he has had Indigo for several years—finding her on a dig—he still couldn’t figure out how it automatically connected like that.
The holographic display blinked on.
He wiped his gloved hands and pulled himself out from under the console.
“I don’t even want to know how that happened,” said Jozi, eyeing Indigo like the ancient alien technology it was.
“I couldn’t explain it myself even if I wanted to.”
Jozi split the holoscreen. “We’re invisible now?”
Ozzy sat. “To all radar and tracking systems, yes.”
“Good.”
She inhaled and leaned back in her seat. She pressed several holographic buttons on the holodisplay, and the news turned on.
“Please turn that off,” said Ozzy.
Jozi went to turn it off, but Ozzy’s eyes about bulged out of his head, and he reached for Jozi’s arm, making sure she didn’t comply.
The explosion at Pollack Mine was the current story. It was live.
Ozzy’s stomach about hit the floor. His brother, his last family member besides Lily, was another victim left in Ozzy’s wake.
But he had to watch. He had to know how his brother perished. In a way, it was closure.
A well of anguish formed into a lump at the base of his throat.
The scene was horrific. Smoke poured out of a hole in the graviton shield that surrounded the mine, and a fire was still raging, meaning oxygen was still in the dome and feeding the flames.
The cameras zoomed in on a woman in a space suit, standing next to the dome.
“As you can see, the carnage left here is devastating. From what we know, two vigilantes entered the mine and, for unknown reasons, left explosives inside. You can see—” The woman paused, clearly receiving information from an earpiece inside her helmet. “This just in. They’ve counted over a hundred dead bodies.” She shook her head. “This is truly horrific.”
A man in a space suit walked up to the woman. He waved his hands in the air, shaking his head. The news reporter ignored him.
“And we have the names of the culprits. An Ozzy Mack and a Jozi Ryan. If—”
The man took the mic out of her hands. “They are lying. I’m the owner of this mine. Everyone listen. My name is Lou Mack and my brother, Ozzy Mack, had nothing to do with this crime. He didn’t have explosives. The MMP agents arrived, and—”
&nb
sp; The feed turned off, and the channel went to static. Ozzy jerked forward, his mouth ajar. “My brother’s alive?” His hand went to his chest. “We have to turn back.”
Jozi put her hands on the control stick. “We’ll be caught if we do.”
“My brother will be dead if we don’t. You bet your sweet ass that Robert is watching that news report right now. He’ll clearly see that my brother wants to either out him or the Mars Ministry Police. That won’t fly with Robert.”
Jozi swatted the air like swatting his comment away. “I can’t get caught, Ozzy. I can’t. I’m not turning around. I’m a felon now, just like you.”
She was, and now she knew what it felt like. As a criminal, any decision in her life from this point forward wouldn’t be an easy one. A criminal, especially a criminal forced into the business, had to weigh every option and how it would affect others.
“Pull up Pollack Mine’s com channel. I have to get a message to my brother.” If Ozzy remembered correctly, the message would go straight to Lou’s personal com line. Not that Lou ever called him back.
Jozi went to touch the screen, but she lurched back, startled. The screen became staticky and changed.
“Greetings.” Gragas, the head of the Galactic Knights—the same Knights that saved Ozzy’s and Jozi’s asses when they were extracting the cure for the Martian Plague—was on the holodisplay.
He had on his robot mask and helmet, along with his signature cape around his shoulders.
Ozzy put his hands out. “What, am I a beacon? How is everyone able to find me?” He looked under the flight console. Indigo was glowing, indicating she was on.
“We found you by Indigo’s energy signature.”
“What?” Ozzy slapped his hand on the control panel, stopping the Miner from going any further.
They were far enough underground and away from the MMP agents that it would be safe to rest here for a while with their craft covered in soil, rock, and ancient bacteria.
“You can’t just patch into Indigo. That’s the point in having her.”
Gragas interlaced his gloved fingers. “I’m sorry, Ozzy, but it’s possible, and we did. Indigo’s signature is similar to a crystal skull’s signature. The skulls, along with Indigo, can energetically communicate very well with our technology, but that’s only a fraction of what they can do.” He leaned forward. “Ozzy, trust me when I say this: No one else has the technology to track Indigo, so you are safe.”
Ozzy crossed his arms. “Little is surprising me these days.” He cleared his throat. “What do we owe the pleasure of this call?”
“The Dunrakee have sent an entirely separate fleet on a different trajectory to Mars. One that even your crime syndicates haven’t discovered.”
Ozzy cocked his head to the side, and butterflies flew around his stomach’s inner lining.
Jozi straightened her posture. “You’re saying that two different armadas are on their way?”
Gragas dipped his head. “Correct. The fleet the crime syndicates have shown you are also on their way, but that’s a Dunrakee dummy fleet. Another fleet, an assassin fleet, will be on your planet in a matter of hours, maybe sooner. Please notify your authorities to be ready.”
Ozzy slowly blinked his eyes. “Notify them?” He blew his cheeks out wide. “Uh…there’s a problem with doing that.”
Gragas shifted. “What is the challenge?”
“The authorities either want me killed or put back into prison. I can’t tell which one they prefer, but I’m pretty sure they’re leaning toward me being dead rather than alive right now.”
Jozi shook her head. “It’s not about us living or dying, Ozzy. It’s about protecting the innocent people of this planet.” She eyed Gragas. “Be assured, I’ll get that information to the Ministry as soon as I can. I’ll find a way.” She pursed her lips. “Whether or not they believe me is another story.”
Gragas dipped his head a second time. “Understood.” He turned slightly, looking at Ozzy. “Remember when I told you that the Dunrakee terrorist leader had a bounty on your head?”
How could Ozzy forget? He was evading the terrorist leader’s son who made a bonehead move and blew himself up.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Some of the bounty hunters didn’t get the information that the Dunrakee terrorist leader died at the city known as Dawes. They are on their way to kill you.”
An emotional shockwave hit Ozzy. He slapped the top of his helmet with his hands and kept them there.
Just my luck.
“You’re telling me that as well as the Dunrakee landing here any moment, I also have bounty hunters landing here?”
“Yes, shortly.”
“How shortly?”
Gragas straightened his posture. “I don’t know. They appear and disappear on our radar, using similar technology that you have with your indigo rock, just not as sophisticated.”
“Okay, I’ll ask my question differently. About how close are they?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Ozzy rested his arms on his armrest. “Don’t worry?” Ozzy wanted to laugh. This was all too ridiculous. “Can you let them know that the terrorist leader is dead, and they won’t be receiving any auric credits for killing me?”
That should clear things up and send the bounty hunters home in a matter of seconds.
Gragas chuckled. “Don’t be silly. Once they figure out the leader is dead, they’ll hold someone you love for ransom. And if you don’t pay. . .” Gragas ran his finger across his throat.
“. . .they kill my loved ones,” responded Ozzy, his voice thick and cracking.
A loud pounding shook the craft, and the Earth trembled for several seconds. Gragas’s image froze and then blinked off.
“What was that?” asked Jozi. She moved her fingers across the holodisplay and switched the view from com channel to outside view.
All they could see was dirt. Which was good since nothing actually hit them.
She continued moving her hands across the screen. “I’m pulling up the closest Mars satellite.”
Another loud pound echoed through the Flying Miner. It came from above and practically vibrated through Ozzy. He looked at the ceiling. Whatever it was, it was big.
“Oh my Mars. You won’t believe this,” blurted Jozi.
Ozzy turned his attention to what she was staring at on the holodisplay.
Several crafts were landing directly above their position.
“They’re already here,” said Jozi.
Ozzy curled his fingers into fists, cursing his dumb luck. “That’s got to be the Dunrakee assassin fleet Gragas just told us about.”
Jozi stood abruptly. “Holy Mars.” Her mouth gaped open. “And they brought a colony ship.” She plopped back into her seat. “The next Dunrakee invasion on humans has begun. They’re planning to wipe us off the face of this planet.”
17
Outlawed Zone Four, Mars
The colony ship landed, shaking the ground like a Marsquake registering high on the Richter scale.
Its wings were the size of small cities, and the rest of the body was rectangular and several cities long.
By now, there was no way the Martian Marines and the Ministry hadn’t detected this thing and the rest of the currently landing fleet.
Robert and the Ministry were probably pissing their pants, scrambling, and doing their best to stage an attack. But, according to the Ministry and the crime syndicates, the Dunrakee fleet, the “dummy” fleet they were monitoring, was several weeks out.
The real armada was here and ready to pounce. If Ozzy was using a Ministry satellite to watch this landing unfold, it meant that the Ministry had probably noticed this surprise armada hours ago.
They had more than their hands full.
The colony ship’s wings folded inward. The ship then opened up like a briefcase, and each side slowly lowered onto the Martian high desert plain.
A bright light shot from its middle and toward the sk
y. The light halted at around five hundred meters and spread outward like an umbrella, eventually covering the colony ship in a dome.
The first Dunrakee city had landed. More were no doubt on their way.
Ozzy focused on the screen. “Don’t get this information to the authorities, Jozi. They know they’re here. Instead, send a transmission to Jonas Moon, Mort Wildly, Lyra No Tail, Shifty Eyez, and…” He stopped himself. It wouldn’t do any good naming off all the crime lords or contacting everyone. “Scratch that. Contact the black market. Let them know. The syndicates will get the message straight away.”
Jozi shot Ozzy a blank look. “You can’t just contact the black market.”
“You can.”
“You mean it’s one entity?”
“It’s everywhere but run by one organization.”
Another pound shuddered the Miner. More crafts were landing. They had arrived on the other side of the planet, most likely taking a long route around any Ministry satellites. And here they were, touching down on the largest outlaw zone on Mars and far away from the Ministry and any of the Ministry’s ships they were amassing to take on the dummy fleet.
“Close your eyes,” Ozzy ordered.
“Why?”
“I can’t let you see the codes into the black market.”
“You have to be joking.”
She closed her eyes anyway, and Ozzy typed several codes into the com line, then ran his finger across the display screen.
The line rang.
“You can open them now.”
The line picked up. A silver image of a “B” and “M” surrounded by a black circle filled the screen.
“Ozzy Mack?” The voice was low and sinister, like an evil-doer in holomovies.
“Can’t talk right now. I’m sending you something important.” Ozzy gestured to Jozi. “Send the satellite feed to the black market now.”
Jozi typed on the holographic keypad. “Done.”
Ozzy switched the holodisplay from the com line to the view in front of them—dirt half-lit by the Miner’s lights. He backed the digger up. “Heading to Tagus Valles.”
“Wait, what about Olympus Mons? We need to get the Ark of the Concordant more than ever.”
Martian Quadrilogy Box Set Page 32