"Thomas Cross," Josef said. "His involvement doesn’t surprise me." His eyes hardened. "He is shrewd, cunning, and capable of this kind of deceit."
Seth roiled with anger. "How do you know that?"
Chloe placed her hand on his arm to relax him. His racing mind began to overwhelm her, and she needed him to slow down or she wouldn’t be able to sense anything from Josef.
"He is the head of Aethpisian Security," Josef said. "In addition, he is the head of the Martian Central Security Force. If a threat from one of the nonaligned colonies was imminent, he would be in charge, and he would impose any force necessary."
"He did debrief us at the meeting," Seth said. "He could make up the facts without having anyone verify them. Why would anyone question them as false? How can we prove he deceived the council?"
"We can’t be sure yet," Chloe said, looking over toward Seth. "These leaps of faith are good for brainstorming, but we need facts. Why would he try to mislead us?"
"Naturally, he has something to gain," Josef said.
"But why would he not show us the truth?" Seth said, shaking his head. "Mars would rally against the invasion force, so why—"
"Because Aethpis was behind the entire invasion," Josef said, finishing his thought.
Chloe tapped her fingers against the table. "We can’t prove that. Aethpis has no reason to invade Lunara. An invasion force wanting the meteor stones as leverage against us is more plausible. The debriefing meeting allayed our concerns. I sensed no inconsistencies in their testimony. Our theories aren’t any more believable than their proclaimed truths. Jinx, the council believes them."
"Not everyone," Seth said to remind her. "Lingering doubts remain from the council. Surely you sensed the uncertainty from them."
She nodded. Seth was correct about the uncertainty from the council members, but she wasn’t convinced of the source. If she could have reached further into their minds, she would know, but only residual feelings from the debriefing and biased conjecture from Seth and Josef filled her mind. Thomas Cross’s original report remained solid and plausible.
Josef rubbed his chin. Something about the way he rubbed the coarse hair through his thick fingers made her nervous, as if he was preparing for something he didn’t want to do or say. His mind was still a blank to her. Perhaps the alcohol shielded him.
"My informants tell me that Aethpis has been stockpiling metals and raw materials for over five years," Josef said. "The meteor stones are tracked with coding numbers, which are molecularly bonded for identification. The auditors are missing almost a quarter of a million tons. And after this recent invasion, we must assume Minister Cortez has built a fleet to take over Lunara." Josef slid a datapad across the table toward them. "All the information has official electronic seals for authenticity. Lunara is far enough away from Mars to hold credibility with this information. Please give it to your captain so we may challenge Aethpis before it is too late. The confrontation can’t lead to bloodshed on Mars."
"We have no intention of letting this turn into a war," Chloe said, looking toward the datapad. "Why haven’t you disclosed this to the council?"
"Nondisclosure is safer for my colony," he said. "Our resources are too limited to battle against Aethpis. They would bury this information so far into Mars’s crust no one would ever find it. I was holding it until a suitable messenger arrived to take it to the council."
Seth clapped his hands together. "This is probably why Aethpis blamed Memnonia for the attacks. They must know you had it and will do anything, including blaming them for the attack, to cover up what they have been up to."
"Why wouldn’t they destroy Memnonia?" she replied. "Nonaligned colonies are rarely missed, and one smartly placed bomb could cripple the dome here. An accident."
"That is callous of you, Miss Jones," Josef Vhortov rasped.
She put her hand up. "Listen, this data is a little too neat for my taste."
Seth skimmed through the datapad’s pages. "The evidence is signed with Aethpisian seals. These are impossible to replicate."
She shook her head. "We are looking from the wrong angle. We have to be."
Easing into the room, a guard moved over to Josef and whispered something Chloe couldn’t hear or detect.
Josef turned to them. "A windstorm is forming to the west and is heading toward us fast. Windstorms can get bad out here. You must stay with us for a little while. They usually last a day or two."
"Not with this new information," Seth said. "We can’t stay here any longer. Our ship will outrun the storm."
"You can’t. They are too powerful."
Seth shook his head. "We have to get this information to the main colonies before the gala starts. It is the ideal situation for the minister to make his final move. All the top officials will attend." He stood up. "Thank you for all your help."
"You can’t go out. The windstorm will tear you apart before you reach your ship."
"Our ship is in a sheltered area. We will make it."
Chloe wasn’t so sure that leaving was a good idea. But she couldn’t stop Seth fleeing into the windstorm, so she would stop him on the flight back to Trivium Port. Too much of the evidence was contradictory for her to believe any side at this point.
Chapter 20
At first, they set out toward their hovercar at a good pace, but shortly, as they ascended a modest embankment, a torrent of dust and pebbles, propelled by the storm, bombarded them. Seth leaned into the pelting gusts to keep his balance. The wind, like water running along a wood floor, was determined to find a way into every exposed hole in their suits, and it pained their bones with each step. Chloe shivered several times while Seth rubbed his arms for warmth. They continued forward as the gatekeeper instructed.
However . . . unbeknownst to Seth, they had exited into a labyrinth. They had taken a shortcut guaranteed to cut their journey by a few desperate minutes. He had expected it to take them farther down the path they had entered on, but when they left the shortcut, they found themselves on a completely different section of the lowland valley. In hindsight, he wished he were back at the main entrance to the colony where he somewhat knew the terrain. He twisted between boulders and rocks, realizing soon that he couldn’t keep a line of sight with chasma containing their hovercar. So he used the cliff’s face as the marker. He continued toward it, following his instincts, no matter how far the path veered offline.
Seth synced his arm controls with Chloe. The homing beacon jumped around. First it told her it was high up on the ridge to his right, but at other times it was nonexistent, and it was never down the chasma where it should be. He pulled them both behind a rock for shelter.
"I can’t get a fix on the hovercar," he shouted over the howling wind. "Too much interference. We’ll keep going. The closer we get, the more likely we’ll get a fix on the signal."
She shivered. "I can’t tell if we are getting closer. I can’t see with all the dust."
"We are getting closer to the cliff. We’ll be a fair distance from the opening, but the cliff will give us something to follow and perhaps some much-needed relief." He grabbed her arm. "Put your thermal coat temperature on maximum."
"Already done."
He pulled at the back of her coat, took out the hood from her collar, wrapped it over her head, and tightened the string around her breathing mask and goggles.
She did the same for him.
"That is much better; the air down the back of my neck was brutal," he shouted. "Once we get into the chasma, we should be a lot more sheltered. I am guessing it’s only about half a kilometer away."
They went on.
The dust blanketed his vision, and the wind shrilled as if some mythological creature was crying in anger. The ground beneath them became more rugged. They staggered over loose rock and around tall boulders. Small, jagged rocks lined the Martian ground, and the sharpened edges bit into their shins as they stumbled over the terrain. Just when Seth was finding a rhythm in his steps—spotting the good
footsteps from the bad ones—the Martian terrain deceived him. A loose flat rock slipped from under his foot, and he surfed down a small embankment. With a jolt, he stopped short and fell to his knees. He cried out, not so much from the pain but because of the frustration and misery the planet was again subjecting him to. His shin stung, and his ankle felt stabbed by a thousand needles.
"Are you okay?" Chloe yelled.
He grunted a positive reply. He tried to stand, but a sharp pain shot through his thigh. He massaged it.
After he had leaned on a boulder to help get himself to his feet, he attempted with little result to survey the land around them. The cliff’s face hid behind the haze of the storm. He could only guess the way. He didn’t want to trust his eyes anymore, not with the shadows and the mirage of objects created by the twirling sand. He pulled Chloe along, determined to get out.
After a handful more slips and a dozen more jagged edges slicing into his shin, out of nowhere the side of the cliff closed in front of him. He put his hand out and touched the wind-beaten surface, just to make sure it was real.
He paused to catch his breath, and a stab of pain consumed him as the one-hundred-plus cuts and uncountable bruises on his shins throbbed. With effort, he pressed on for no other reason than to distract him from the torment.
As they moved along the face of the cliff toward the mouth of the chasma, the path became more difficult. They headed into the wind, and the tangy taste of the CO2 sickened him. Each step felt like trudging through waist-high snow. Chloe tried to learn from his stepping mistakes and used his body as a shield from the wind, but he doubted she was even cognizant of the path or her steps any longer. He dragged her along behind him.
He halted, sensing her exhaustion. Squatting down, he pulled her into him. The nothingness in her eyes frightened him. A great lethargy had consumed her. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know she couldn’t survive much more. Her mind barely let her stay awake, her lungs wheezed with each breath, and her footsteps had become purely mechanical. In his quest for her safety, he was about to kill her.
He grabbed her arm and looked at the positioning beacon on her control panel. The signal gained strength. They were in the right position. Not much farther to the chasma, he imagined, but he wondered if he would be able to recognize it.
He moved on. After only a half dozen steps, Chloe, staggering behind him, was finding it harder and harder; she was getting even weaker. He turned and found her falling to the ground. He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck to lesson the impact.
She lay face down along the surface, and he pushed her over. She was shivering to the marrow and virtually unconscious, mumbling incoherently. Martian dust covered her face and entered into her mouth and nose. Her breathing mask slipped to the side. The look in her eyes, the desperation on her face, and the limpness in her body all reminded him of his mother’s death. He had kept her on Lunara to protect her, and in only slightly over a day, the cold hand of Mars had wrapped around her chest, draining the life from her delicate body.
Seconds later, fighting the exhaustion, she jarred herself awake, spitting up dirt. A wave of relief rippled over him, as he realized she wasn’t comatose. But she wasn’t traveling anywhere under her own power, either.
He picked her up in his arms, and once he got his balance, he found he could carry her without any extra effort.
For fifteen to twenty minutes, he stumbled through the unforgiving terrain around the base of the cliff. All the while, the wind bullied him with fierce gusts from all directions, kicking fine-grained dust into the air around him. Mars was brutal. Its teeth were drawn.
Chloe grunted, but he ignored her. She grunted again with purpose. A slight tug along his sleeve pulled his concentration away from her to where her glassy eyes were looking.
The mouth of the chasma was disguised, and maybe he would have missed it without her reminder. He turned into it, and instantly, the wind dropped to an almost bearable gale.
After a short walk through the dusty fog, he found a hollow along the edge. He placed Chloe inside and realized with a sudden overwhelming rush that he had spent his energy. He passed out.
Seth opened his eyes and found Chloe looking at him with her arms draped around his body. She moved her goggles to her forehead, and her deep brown eyes stared into his. "How long have I been out?"
"An hour or so," she said, smiling under her breathing mask.
"I think we are in the chasma. I didn’t get a good look."
"Yes, we are. The storm is still over us, but this area is pretty quiet."
"We should get moving again. I want to get back to the hotel tonight."
"You want to fly in this?"
"We can decide that when we reach the hovercar."
She nodded.
After securing their hoods and goggles, they set out down the chasma. The storm swirled overhead, yet the wind had slackened. Though the walls protected them from the wind, the farther they moved down, the colder the air became. He expected the opposite effect, but the narrow passages retained the cold within the dense rock better than the open expanses.
"How are your shins?" she asked, rubbing her knotting thigh. "Mine feel like a watermelon without skin."
"I will forever hold a grudge against these rocks," he muttered. "My ankles have twisted three times each."
"I have you beat. At least five ankle twists each."
She twisted her arm to view the display. "The controls say we are three hundred meters away. It shouldn’t be too much longer. I’ll welcome the relief from this constant wind."
They continued slowly toward the hovercar, stepping over rock after rock.
Sometime later, with the cold fighting them the entire way, they reached the hovercar. A layer of red dust covered most of the back and the top. Seth used his hands to wipe away the dust from the roof and the intake valves.
Chloe stowed the gear into the rear compartment.
Once satisfied that the exterior was suitable for takeoff, Seth raised the canopy and they hopped in. He pulled the hood back from his face, and as he removed the breathing mask, he breathed deeply in warm, pure oxygen. He punched in the start-up routine.
The cockpit’s computer forbade him from resting, flashing a warning for the next action. He entered the command code to power up the engine capacitors. While the computer chirped back positive diagnostics replies, he pulled his arms out of his jacket, slid it off awkwardly from his seated position, and stuffed it into the rear hatch behind his seat. Chloe did the same, and the cramped cabin became a little freer.
A final beep let him know the computer was waiting for him to start the ignition sequence. He rubbed his hands and then tapped the keypad, entering the coordinates for Trivium Port and configuring the system to plot a flight pattern into the high atmosphere.
The weather data trickled across the navigation screen. The storm hung in the sky at eight thousand feet. The hovercar had a maximum thrust altitude of ten thousand feet; anything over that and the air would become too thin for the engines to intake enough air for proper thrust. His goal was to fly between the storm and the hovercar’s maximum altitude and allow them to travel in relative comfort—if they could break the barrier of the storm above them.
The navigational computer returned a positive flight pattern. Now he faced the hardest part. Would he be able to start the engine? If enough dust blew into the intake, he might never get the hovercar enough air to get off the ground. He pressed the starter button, and the engine sputtered and stopped. He tried again; this time the engine churned but then died almost immediately. Chloe crossed her fingers, and he pressed on the button a third time. The engine roared to life, then sputtered, kicking out dust, but it held the charge. He throttled the engine in short bursts to soothe it.
The engine ran. In the middle of a storm, he had a small victory. The power gauge moved forward.
An alert flashed, bright yellow. He cringed. "This hovercar comes with a safety module. It will take a few minute
s to run the engine diagnostics."
"That’s fine—it needs time to warm up," Chloe said. "The storm is getting worse." She warmed her hands under her arms. "How are you going to exit the chasma? The winds are probably ten times as rough as when we landed. Can you avoid the sides?"
The alert blatted in his ear. He smiled at Chloe and turned his attention to the computer. The control panel indicated the safety diagnostic had been completed, and the weather navigator suggested he should wait out the storm before takeoff. But Seth wouldn’t allow the ship to win, so he overrode the controls and cleared for takeoff.
He glanced up out the canopy window toward the stormy sky. The chasma walls squeezed tighter in the darkness of the storm. He fired up the repulse engines, creating a rumbling sound in the cockpit. The hovercar moved off the ground, swaying back and forth. He retracted the landing gear, and for a moment, he wondered if it was all worth it to bring this information to the chancellor. Chloe’s earlier demands for independence lingered in his mind, and he couldn’t ignore the truth behind them. She was slipping away. His objectives remained the same, and beyond his original purpose to save Lunara, he wanted to prove he wasn’t controlling or paranoid, to prove he was justified in being overbearing, and to prove he was right. The datapad showed the minister was clearly hiding valuable metalor caches for his construction of the invasion fleet, and more importantly, he was hiding the truth. Once Mars and the crew saw the truth, only then could Seth return to his life. Eamonn would see his wisdom; Jan would forgive him and understand his hatred of Mars.
But first, a Martian-sized problem loomed overhead. The chances of him slamming the hovercar into the chasma walls were high but not high enough to stop him from leaving. He could either play it safe and wait out the storm in the hope that the minister didn’t act against Mars at the gala, or he could risk everything and expose Mars, edging closer to the paradise he had been trying for years to attain. He glanced toward Chloe, admiring her soft face and remembering it—just in case a mistake on his part caused a fiery wreck.
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 19