A creak and a clang echoed through the cabin. Seth and Chloe walked through the door.
Chloe sat beside Roche. "Did you enjoy Aethpis last night, Roche?" she asked.
"Fabulous," Roche replied. "But I wish Parker would have stuck around. This one girl . . . she was perfect for him. She was into all those government conspiracies, too. I couldn’t keep up with her. I needed you, buddy."
Parker grunted back.
"She was the female version of you. Long blond hair, blue eyes, and a thin face."
"That’s all I need," he muttered. "Someone just like me." He couldn’t stop thinking about the woman who was more his opposite—Sarah Cortez and her dark hair, olive skin, and brown eyes.
Chloe laughed. "You can be so uptight, Parker."
"I have other things on my mind," Parker objected.
The hatch clanked shut, quieting them all. Eamonn secured the lock, moved over to the conference table, and sat down.
Parker noticed the captain’s disheveled hair and sunken eyes. It seemed as if his preoccupation had been eating at him, and he had lost sleep over it. Parker wondered if Eamonn would be able to concentrate on the matter at hand and be of some help to them.
Eamonn sat down. "This should give us the privacy we need."
"Shouldn’t Gwen be here?" Seth said.
"No," Jan said. "Her father still won’t allow her to leave Zephyria. I talked with her earlier."
"Jan," Eamonn said. "Since you called the meeting, you should offer the first bit of information."
Parker looked, measuring the crew, trying to get an indication of their mood. Now with Eamonn there, the somber tone of the meeting radiated from everyone, yet for many different reasons. This troubled him more than if they had shared a common problem. Eamonn’s concern was elsewhere; Jan and Seth were convinced of a conspiracy on Mars; Chloe was trying to get Seth to let go of his hatred; Roche welcomed his new experience on Mars and wasn’t going to let anything distract him; and he, Parker, found himself more worried about Seth and Chloe than he had expected to be. He suspected that at some point someone would stop their sloppiness and take them.
Jan had requested this meeting to spur action, and he wanted the meeting for Seth and Chloe. Seth could unload his worries and return to some semblance of sanity. Then they could finally get down to the business of finding out what happened and who their enemy was.
"With everything going on around here," Jan began, "the Lunara invasion, the communications array attack, the kidnapping attempt on Seth and Chloe. These odd things have me concerned."
"Concerns are fine," Chloe said. "Naturally questions remain, but Mars Central has answered most of them for us. Lunara is back in control. Ty said as much in his transmission."
Jan shook her head. "The way he ended it didn’t satisfy me. I think he warned me. He would never end a transmission so informally."
"You can’t base your entire suspicions on a cryptic comment by Ty," Eamonn said. "Mars Central and the minister showed us more evidence for than we found against their theory. The report is correct."
"Captain, you have to listen to her," Parker said. "I find your lack of faith in our intuition disturbing. We aren’t all paranoid."
Eamonn’s eye twitched. "I need facts, not theories."
"I found other things," Jan said. "For one, the delay from the solar flares . . . they never happened. I contacted some old friends at the Solar Research Center, and they said the skies between Earth and Mars have been clean for days."
"Cross’s report showed them from the stellar weather service," Eamonn said. "Are you saying they falsified records?"
Jan leaned in closer to Eamonn. "Yes."
"That seems farfetched." Eamonn shook his head and pushed back in this chair. "The weather service being part of a conspiracy doesn’t add up. Too many facts to falsify."
Jan’s eyes narrowed a bit. "My friends say no flares happened, so they didn’t happen."
"What else?" Eamonn said with a rasp in his tone.
"There are a lot of things," Parker said. "That guy Roche and I followed to the private hangar, for one. He was scouting out our hangar—probably was one of the guys who attacked Seth and Chloe."
"That connection is tenuous," Eamonn said. "We can randomly connect dots on a child’s picture, but that doesn’t mean we form a shape. You must follow the numbers to create a true picture."
"Is this the guy?" Seth said, pulling a photo out of his pocket. "I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your camera and took a photo at the hospital, Parker."
Parker studied the picture. The man’s face was swollen and bruised, but he had no doubts it was the same man. "That’s him."
Roche was next to examine the picture. "Could be. Seth did a real number on him. I can’t tell if that is his nose or his lip."
"Sorry, Parker. I can’t be sure either," Jan admitted. "I only saw him for a minute."
"That lineup wouldn’t get a man into police custody," Eamonn said. "You’re seeing shadows, Parker."
"Show him our other missing dots," Parker said and sat back in a huff. He was angry he had to prove so much to the captain. He thought he had earned enough respect from him.
"I pulled the video recording of the message from Ty when he told us to go to Mars," said Jan. She moved to the display screen, inputted the correct instructions, and played the sequence again.
The scrambled picture of Ty’s face appeared. " . . . Under attack . . . help . . . taken over . . ." The video continued until the soldier knocked him unconscious.
"What is so unusual?" Eamonn said.
"Computer, display frame forty to forty-nine, focusing the screen on sector A4," Jan said.
Parker watched the screen focus on the uniform of a soldier.
"What is it?" Chloe said. "A badge or some medals."
The pendant jogged Parker’s memory of last night . . . of Sarah. She kept creeping into his thoughts. Not now, Parker.
"It’s not a badge or medals. It’s a pendant." Jan cleaned up the image using the computer filters. "When Kyle Cortez arrived, I was drawn to a similar one attached to his jacket. I didn’t know where I had seen it before until we were on the train last night."
Jan passed a photo of Kyle’s pendant around the table. Parker compared the viewscreen’s image. The bird was the same.
"Now, I could chalk this all up to my paranoid brain," Jan said, pausing for a moment. "Until the attack on Seth and Chloe last night. Someone or something is after us."
"We should investigate." Seth looked around the table for a response. "I don’t trust anyone on this planet. Not even Gwen’s father and especially not the minister of Aethpis."
"Why must something always be wrong for you?" Eamonn said to Seth in a sharp tone. His finger jabbed at Seth, causing everyone to lean back. "Mars has shown us nothing but hospitality!"
Seth’s face turned dark red and his jaw churned. "Chloe and I were attacked last night. What more do you want? Something is wrong on Mars. Something big is about to happen."
"Something big did happen!" Eamonn yelled back. "Lunara was invaded and the communications array was knocked out."
"No!" Seth said. "A rogue invasion force couldn’t construct the ships used during the attack. One of the main colonies is involved. Do you know how ignorant we all are about what happens on Mars? The governments have taken control out from under us."
"Seth is right," Parker said. "Mars has changed, and we are in a unique position to see it. They are attacking us. Not Mars. Not Lunara. But us."
Eamonn crossed his arms. "Seth is terrified of Mars, and he has deluded you all. The attack isn’t an excuse to believe his inane ramblings."
Seth stood up. "Paranoia is a great excuse for ignoring me . . . until I am shown to be right. What tale will you spin then?"
Parker, standing beside Seth, grabbed at him, but it was in vain. Seth was far too strong for him.
With a flick of his wrist, or so it seemed, Seth pulled Parker’s arm up and shoved
him against the wall.
"Seth!" Chloe hissed.
Parker groaned as his shoulder crunched into the metal surface. For perhaps the first time, he appreciated the depth of Seth’s strength. The pain lingered, and he realized how the man in the photograph had sustained such bad injuries. The man had experienced Seth’s full wrath, or perhaps more frightening, he had experienced only a fraction of it. In Parker’s case, the force of Seth’s action had almost separated his shoulder.
Seth stood tall now. "You and the rest of this crew are as ignorant as I am. Aside from Roche, everyone came to Lunara to hide from Mars, but I am the only one willing to admit it. If Parker didn’t come to Lunara, he would have accepted the Phobos job. Jan and Ty claim a growing bureaucracy on Mars as the reason, but Jan wanted to avoid Ty’s past liaisons and forget they ever happened. And you left because of a woman, captain. A desire to avoid Mars is a familiar story on Lunara. We’re all to blame for our ignorance of what is happening, and we should find out, now."
Jan slapped Seth across with face with a terrific smack. "Don’t talk about my relationship with Ty ever again! And Eamonn is not scared of this planet."
Parker worried Seth might do something rash, but he simply ignored Jan’s slap . . . as if it was nothing.
"I’m stating what he doesn’t." Seth gnashed his teeth. "We have been ignorant for too long, and the only way to get a crash course in what is happening around here is to investigate for ourselves. Jan . . . you agree something is wrong."
"You hate Mars," Eamonn interjected. "You can’t be objective. Jan came with some evidence to support her claims, not gut feelings."
"Look at her head." Seth pointed to the gash on Chloe’s forehead. "That is evidence."
Eamonn shook his head. "All circumstantial and construed in a thousand different ways. Mars has petty crimes."
Seth threw up his hands. "They tried to kidnap her. Jan met with Gwen, and she offered her skepticism. Gwen didn’t relieve any of our worries. She is the best person to tell you what is happening on Mars, and she only exacerbated our concerns."
"You don’t know what Gwen said to her," Eamonn said.
"I know enough," Seth said. "Gwen thinks there is something wrong, too. Doesn’t she? Jan?"
Jan offered no reply; instead, she glowered at him.
Parker felt the crew coming apart and wanted to hold it together. "Stop it!" he yelled. "We are a team, and fighting isn’t the answer. Even if we don’t agree, the captain’s orders are what we should be following."
Seth pushed his chest up, strengthening his resolve.
Chloe glared at Seth, but he did not waver in his stance.
Parker suddenly knew the real issue on Mars, and it had been in front of him the whole time. It was the crew. They were tearing themselves apart, haunted by memories that weakened their judgment and friendship. No one trusted anyone anymore. How had the invasion fractured them so badly?
Eamonn tightened his fists. "The government offered nothing but help to us. The inquiry team even supplied us with the locations of the rogue camps. If they said an invasion force was responsible, I can believe it. Why can’t you?"
"What part about being suspicious of them didn’t you understand?" Seth said. "I’ll confirm the rogue camps’ existence. I refuse to accept their word."
"You’re staying here," Eamonn shot back. "Let the local authorities continue their investigation."
Seth balled his fists to match Eamonn. "I told you I don’t trust them. Stop trying to force me to rely on their word."
Seth and Eamonn were both on their feet now, standing eye to eye.
Parker eyed Roche, who was ready to stop anything that might break out.
"I’m your commanding officer!" Eamonn shouted. "You aren’t going to do anything."
"We are not a military crew," Seth said as he tightened his fingers further into his fists. "You only hold authority on flight missions."
"Don’t do this, Seth," Parker said, wanting to defuse the bomb that was about to go off. "He is your captain."
"Stow it, Parker!" Eamonn shouted then turned to Seth. "Is that how it is going to be? You are pulled from the starwing and are fifth seat again."
"Demotion," Seth replied. "Very mature of you. Get your head out of your backside and look around. This crew needs closure."
"Only your paranoid mind needs closure," Eamonn said. "The evidence of what happened is in the minister’s report. Why don’t you read it again?"
"Just calm down," Chloe offered.
"Shut up," Eamonn said sharply.
"Don’t tell her to be shut up," Seth roared, putting his finger into Eamonn’s face.
"I’ll say whatever I want to say. She is demoted, too."
Seth jabbed his finger toward him again. "Don’t you dare bring your vengeance to her."
Eamonn slapped his finger out of his face and shoved Seth hard into the cabinets, which rattled.
Seth reeled, stumbling along the deck until his hand caught a rail. He lunged back at Eamonn, taking him down to the floor.
Parker wasn’t fast enough to stop him and could only grab at Eamonn.
Chloe screamed as the two men rolled on the floor.
Quickly, after the shock wore off, Roche and Parker seized Eamonn and pulled him away from Seth. Chloe pulled Seth back as she was the only person capable of calming his fury.
"Don’t you ever put your finger in my face again!" Eamonn seethed.
"What are you going to do about it?" Seth retorted. "Nothing, just like now. Why don’t you call the local authorities to bail you out?"
"I’m done," Eamonn said. "I have meetings with the port authorities. Stop listening to Seth and smarten up. I expect all of you to be ready and satisfied for when we return to Lunara."
"We will," Chloe said in a weak tone.
Eamonn turned and left the crew cabin.
Parker moved over to the door and looked down the corridor. Eamonn was gone. As he turned back, he saw that each of his crewmates was staring at him. Are they looking at me for affirmation of Eamonn’s orders? Or leadership in undertaking a mutiny? If he spearheaded a mutiny against Eamonn, he would lose the Protector.
His eyes flickered as he focused on Chloe, worry nagging at him as he thought about the attack on her. He knew the danger was real and that Eamonn was wrong. If he took no action, the attackers would find a way to kidnap or kill Seth and Chloe.
Parker let out a long sigh. "We have to do something." He closed the door again.
"I’m going to the takeoff point no matter what," Seth said, seemingly waiting for someone besides himself to reaffirm the position. For all Seth’s paranoia and impulsiveness, he knew how to manipulate the situation to his advantage. "I have to find out where the invaders are headquartered."
"But the captain said . . ." Chloe hesitated. "I promised we would be ready to return to Lunara."
Seth shook his head. "I’m going. Idleness creates trouble for us."
"Seth is right," Parker said. "We need to do this. I know it is almost mutinous, but I can’t shake the feeling that Seth and Chloe are in danger."
"I don’t sense anything wrong on Mars," Chloe replied. "I sensed in the ship the danger Lunara was in, but that feeling hasn’t returned."
"Chloe, something is—" Seth said.
"Seth, quiet," Parker said. "Chloe, I can’t stand idly by while someone kidnaps you and Seth. Go with Seth to Memnonia. He will protect you, and perhaps it will change your mind about Mars and what they are telling us."
Chloe pushed her fingers through her hair, clearly frustrated and vexed. "Seth’s hatred has infected you, but I can’t ignore your concern. My mind is full of doubt."
"Trust me," he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. "Either way, you or Seth will be satisfied."
Chloe pursed her lips and then exhaled. "I will go with him, for you."
"Good," Parker said. "Jan and I will go to Aethpis, and Roche will meet with Gwen as planned."
"As planned?" Chloe
said.
Parker nodded. "Gwen’s plan was for us to help. I didn’t expect Eamonn to ignore us and tell us we are paranoid. It is no longer his authorization but mine. I will take the blame if Eamonn questions any of you."
"We can’t let you take the blame," Jan said. "We are in this together."
Parker shook his head. "Someone has to be the fall guy. I can do that if needed. Don’t get caught up in loyalty. I know Seth and Chloe are in trouble, and I’m willing to risk my career."
"Shouldn’t we protect them together in Trivium?" Roche said. "I don’t like us splitting up."
"Seth and Chloe’s trip to Memnonia is good for us. No one will think to look for them in the expanses of Mars," Parker said. "Plus, we need to do some investigating, so splitting up is our only option."
"Getting into security centers isn’t easy," Roche replied. "How are you going to get into Aethpis?"
"I have some gear stored on Mars from my time here. My military days aren’t far behind me, so I’ll figure a way for Jan and me to enter." Parker smirked. "You have the easy one. Gwen can stroll anywhere in Zephyria and not arouse suspicion."
Roche nodded.
"What about the gala?" Jan said. "We have to attend. Eamonn will know something is up otherwise."
Parker checked his watch. "It’s noon. We should be back in time to attend the nine o’clock gala. Plus, the gala is perfect timing for us. The security will be lighter since it’s the biggest holiday in Martian history."
"We have a plan," Chloe said. "But the captain will find out eventually."
"Yes," Parker conceded. "But only if we find something. Otherwise we can pretend this never happened."
They all nodded.
Chapter 19
In Trivium Port’s hangars, one level down from the Protector, Chloe leaned her hands against the edge of the cockpit. "The report said the ships took off out of Memnonia Sulci."
"We are heading there," Seth replied as he packed the last of their gear into the rear compartment of the hovercar.
"Was Parker serious about taking the fall for this?" Chloe said. "The Protector means so much to him."
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 16