"Do not play dumb with me, Captain Dalton. You are coming to Aethpis to answer some questions about the invasion force. You may come voluntarily, or we can arrest you for your role in this ill-advised attack and betrayal."
"And what makes you think I won’t hide where you can’t find me?" His Revolutionary War instincts began to creep in.
"Because I found you already. Why do you think you received a communication on this channel? My personal security team is waiting for you outside."
He glowered. "Jan . . . you guys went behind my back and set me up!"
"You are far from innocent, Captain," Sarah said.
"Miss Cortez . . . we should meet in person. I have information for you that will help you determine who the real enemy is." His crew had screwed up badly, and he could only think of one way to get out of the situation. Use the piece of evidence that was a mystery to everyone—the FSTAT communication.
"And what information is that?"
"The old FSTAT system contained an encrypted transmission, and I believe this is how the invaders from Earth talked to Mars. The source on Mars is our common enemy here. Not us."
"What does it say?"
"I will forward you a copy, and we can discuss it when I arrive," Eamonn said, bluffing.
Sarah eyed him thoughtfully. "For your sake, you better bring something worthwhile. I find it impossible that you can climb out of the hole your crew has already dug."
Eamonn curled his lower lip against his teeth. He hoped someone on Sarah’s team would crack it and exonerate his backstabbing crew. He wanted the satisfaction of getting hold of each of them and pushing them out the nearest air lock.
Chapter 26
Chloe trailed Seth as they hurried along the surface. In the short distance, an alarming sight elevated their fear. The sprawled foot of the cliff blocked their path for miles in both directions.
The breathing masks made her jog labored. No one had come up with a breathing mask that would convert air fast enough to match a human jogging. The best way to accomplish a steady speed was to jog for a hundred paces and then walk the next hundred paces. Alternating the pattern increased speed and kept the lungs regulated.
Arriving at the base of the cliff, Chloe could not see an easy way up. The cliff sloped at some points, but mostly the walls were a steep incline. Seth wandered to the south and studied the crater’s edge. She jogged after him.
"Let’s walk this way," he said. "There is no path here. Unless you’ve grown wings."
"Nope, no wings," she muttered. "It can’t get much worse."
They walked along the base for several minutes to the south. The terrain became rockier, and the algae farms began to disappear farther to the east. The air wasn’t as crisp as before, and each breath was a struggle. Additionally, desperation began to weigh on Chloe’s mind. She kept thinking about the ration packets; she had kept many of them in case an emergency hit. But most of all, she thought about shelter. Death would find them fast if they didn’t find shelter before sundown. Mars’s cold grip would squeeze the heat right out of them, heating coils in their coats or not.
They walked for an hour before a pattern appeared on the cliff face.
Seth hurried his pace. "Up there! The path is camouflaged, but I think it leads to the top," he said, pointing.
"Where? Are you sure the path is real?"
"Back and forth. Something is there," he said, moving several steps away from the base and standing on the tips of his toes. He hopped as he looked up the side. "A ledge . . . can’t be more than a meter wide. I told you it wasn’t an illusion. We will have a short climb, though."
She eyed him with some apprehension, not entirely convinced the trip to the ledge would be a good use of energy. She figured that the appearance of the path was caused only by shadows, but no alternative came to her, so she followed.
Minutes later, and with plenty of self-doubt overcome, she climbed up the cliff’s face.
"A short climb," she muttered. Her eyes darted, searching the face. "It’s a lot more sloped over here." She pointed to her left.
She grabbed the rough rock, always careful to find the firm footholds in the treacherously loose rock. Seth’s protective hand pressed against her back.
"I can do it," she yelled down at him. "You’re making me nervous when you grab me."
"You’re scared," he replied. "We are high up."
That bastard. She didn’t need him reminding her of her greatest fear. A fear that was already making her hands clammy and her knees wobble. "I don’t need you."
"Fine."
With a regretful glimpse down toward him, she saw past him to the ground. Involuntarily, her mind imagined the plunge to the surface. She returned her gaze up the cliff, trying her hardest to stay focused on the task. The climb started okay; she could handle a six-meter plunge, but she was up twenty meters now, maybe even thirty. The potential fall frayed her nerves.
She forced her locked muscles into motion.
"Where is the top?" she called down to him, wanting it all to end. "You said it would be here. A short climb, you said."
"I don’t know. The path shouldn’t be much farther."
"What do you mean, you don’t know? We are getting awfully high."
"Keep going and think about something else."
With mild relief and surprise, after several more heaves, she reached the ledge.
He moved up beside her, brushed the embedded dust off his hands, and dangled his legs over the side. She did the same.
They remained silent.
Seth feared speaking with Chloe. Not like this, not here. He knew when to shut up. Not often, according to Eamonn, but he knew enough to let her be.
The sky above hazed with red, and where the dust thinned along the horizon, spots of blue light peeked through. Lunara—his home—was beyond the atmosphere, outshone by the daylight of Mars.
Dusk began to settle. The shadows behind the rocks cast darkened spots. The temperature had dropped thirty degrees in the last hour and would reach dangerous levels soon. What in Pluto’s name are we doing here?
He tilted his head toward Chloe. At once, the pain of the last few days resurfaced in his thoughts.
Why had Mars Medical come to examine them? He still couldn’t figure out why. Other than the crew of the Protector, no one knew for sure that Chloe and he had these abilities. The rumors on Lunara couldn’t have been taken seriously. And even still, they were the same people they had always been. What had changed to make them notice?
"How has your head been lately?" he asked. "Are the headaches gone?"
"Since we left Trivium Port, my mind is clear. Less clutter. In Trivium, it throbbed, but alone with you . . . all the background noise is gone. The barren lands give me peace."
"If you return to Mars, you will need to begin training yourself to block the sensations," he said. "Your headaches have picked up recently. I haven’t told you this, but I can sense when you get angry or afraid. You probe my mind for comfort. I feel you."
She brushed the dust from his tattered hair. "We were made for one another. As chaotic as you are, your mind soothes me. But you have to let go of your hatred for Mars for us to be happy."
"I can’t. My mother’s face that day. Your face that day. Not ever." He gazed into the distance.
The wind whistled along the cliff’s surface and flowed warmly along his face. His ear caught the rhythmic din. The climb still pulling on his lungs, he took in several long breaths. From out of the south, the wind had shifted slightly, and a warm comforting air amazed him as it relieved his tired lungs.
Suddenly, he stopped himself. The warm hand of Mars was trying desperately to pull him closer to its frigid heart. He set his teeth and stood.
"Let’s go," he said, taking one look back in the direction of the wind. He couldn’t help himself and took another deep breath. The warmth in the breeze soothed him.
He turned up toward the ledge.
"The air is getting warmer," she sa
id, reading his discomfort with it. "The heart of Mars is beginning to beat again. Mars’s terraformers are doing a wonderful job."
"Night is coming. Mars is as cold as ever. The core is dead. Why do you think they installed the magnetic field in orbit?" He walked along the ledge. After a few steps, he paused and turned back toward her. "Don’t be fooled by anomalies or by Mars."
She didn’t reply. Simply, she got up and followed him.
His intuition about the ledge had been correct; a path of switchbacks wound up the side of the cliff. By the time they rounded their way to their third ledge, the sun’s angle was low enough for them to see the ledge below them more clearly. The light did nothing to help Seth discern what lay ahead; his vantage point from a quarter of the way up the cliff was so angled upward he had no way of knowing how far the path meandered toward the top. He kept them moving upward regardless.
The barren expanses behind them offered no comfort. If night fell and they were still out there, he could do nothing for her. The cold would wash across their bodies and penetrate their bones, freezing them solid by midnight.
The Zephyrian hazardous cargo facility was only five kilometers past the crest, and this was probably going to be the best destination for them to aim at before darkness set in. Staying close to the side with each step, he led as she shuffled her feet behind him.
She tried to stifle the whispers of protest born of fear, and he continued to move her along. The all-too-real drifting of the sun toward the horizon, counting down to their deaths, signaled that he didn’t have time to be nice or coddle her fears.
They continued forward. She hadn’t spoken in their last three or four rest stops. Maybe she realized the necessity of silence, he thought. He did not expect idle conversation a quarter of a kilometer above the surface with winds blowing over their heads and the loose rocks testing each step.
The top was so far up, too, quashing hopes of reaching it. The situation was as brutal as Seth had ever been in, but he continued forward.
To help himself, for the last half hour Seth had purposefully held his gaze down. He hoped his next glance up the cliff’s face would be more encouraging, but as he stood at the base of the next ledge across, waiting for Chloe to take her break, he was disheartened. They were only halfway to the crest. The half hour of trudging, crawling, digging, and plodding along the path just seemed like a waste.
She signaled her readiness with a grunt, and they continued.
As they moved up higher, the path increased steeply. It was so steep they crawled on their hands and knees to maintain balance. Seth’s shoulders began to ache, and his shins, torn apart by the walk to Memnonia Sulci, had reopened. Blood pooled at his ankles, between his sock and his skin.
However, he surged with silent jubilation about the steeper path—it meant they were ascending faster.
Her fear churned in his mind. She had never had a problem flying in space. With no up or down, she couldn’t fall. But her fears amplified when gravity pulled on her, even when she was under the lighter, artificial gravity of Lunara. He always wondered how she could spacewalk on a Black Widow satellite, with zillions of miles between her feet and nothing, but always froze climbing service ladders only five meters above the hangar floor on Lunara. Even the gangway leading to the Protector gave her the jitters.
With each crisscross along the face of the cliff, the frequency of their rests increased. Seth knelt over her, looking up the side.
"I can’t go just yet," she said between gasps. "I can’t go much longer, either."
"Stay right here. I’ll be back in a moment. I think we’re near the top."
Chapter 27
Sarah Cortez led Eamonn down the corridor toward the conference room. The four guards hurried them along as he tried to slow his pace to continue his count of all the other guards. It had reached twenty to this point; all were guarding various other entrances along their route. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought a commando force had entered the building.
Their mistrust only amplified the uneasiness that had been gnawing at him since they left the hotel for Aethpis Colony. He couldn’t help but think he should have run. If he had walked into a trap, it would be impossible to escape. At least back at the hotel he had the roof and the multiple fire escapes, or, if the worst happened, he could have blasted his way past the four guards they met in the hallway.
In his mind, escape was easy enough, but reality said more guards were probably hiding at each exit. He dreaded the thought of walking into a room looking to gain an ally. At least he knew where he stood with an enemy. He hated them, and they hated him. But a forced alliance would cause him to watch his back for the duration.
He had never trusted the Cortez family, even before he left for Lunara. Sarah’s grandfather always gave him the impression he had too much power, and he flaunted it often. The people applauded him for his victories over the raiders, but he used those victories to advance his standing and his hold over the other council members. Eamonn found Cortez’s exploitation of these victories appalling. Now, his granddaughter was accusing him of treason, and he couldn’t help but notice the same twisted smirk of her grandfather on her face.
Sarah ushered him into the conference room. His stomach churned as he tried to say something to her. The right to speak first was hers, and no one had said a word since Sarah greeted him on the landing pad. Her face offered little more than the stolid expression of the diplomat. Unable to gauge her feelings, he waited for her to speak. He would play the possum, for now.
Upon entering the conference room, he surveyed the area: in the middle of the circular room, a rectangular table rested with eight chairs; the walls displayed paintings, and spread against the walls was a wide variety of ferns and other leafy plants. As he moved farther into the room, the air sweetened, and he heard the faint bubbling of the hydroponics tubing carrying the mineral-enriched water in and out of the potted plants toward the far end. In the corners, more guards stood, equipped with turbo rifles and stony faces. Such excess bravado toward an already searched and unarmed guest was an obvious ploy to intimidate him. Eamonn made it a point to stare back at each of the guards to let them know he wasn’t going to be pacified easily.
His final survey was a glance toward the screen on the wall, which displayed the surface of Mars at a random location that Eamonn inferred was the larger basalt rock formations of southern region.
Jan, staying quiet, sat at the table.
"I think this is the time you start explaining your actions, Captain Dalton," Sarah said, staring at him.
"First, we would like to offer our apologies for this unfortunate incident," he said, waiting for an acknowledgement. None came. "An unknown force invaded Lunara. We—as members of that colony and the only ones to escape the grasp of the threat—felt obligated to conduct our own investigation into the situation." One that I didn’t sanction but that my crew conspired against me to carry out.
"You were debriefed of Lunara’s invasion when you arrived," Sarah said. "On Mars, we don’t infiltrate other colonies’ security centers and risk war between us. We take up these matters in council meetings."
"We were grateful your security forces provided the information, but the situation just didn’t add up. We had a kidnapping attempt on two of our crew members shortly after we arrived. You can check with Trivium Port security for the file containing our report on the incident and other mysteries we couldn’t explain."
"I read the report. Where are they now?"
"They left for Memnonia Sulci yesterday and haven’t returned," Jan said. "It is highly likely the invaders of Lunara captured them."
So Seth really did go to confirm the launch site, Eamonn thought.
"More likely, you are hiding them. I concluded from my preliminary investigation that Lunara staged the invasion. After which, Aethpis rescued Mars from your betrayal. I don’t believe for a second that they are missing—"
Jan leaned forward in her chair. "Hold on. We are the
only survivors of a brutal invasion of our colony, and you call us traitors. You count on theories and unverified evidence from people I don’t trust, while we found proof about who really did this." Jan met Sarah’s eyes with her own icy stare. She pulled out the datapad from the satchel, linked to the screen, and ran the video of Ty’s last message. "This is our chief officer warning us to get to Mars. I am going to stop it at the point where some of our suspicions started."
On the screen, they saw the security officer wearing the pendant.
For a brief moment, Sarah’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. Her jaw churned as she contemplated a reply. "So, you think my family had something to do with Lunara. You talk about my accusations as theories, and you come into here with lies."
Jan put her hand up to signal Sarah to stop talking. "No, we are here to make you our ally. We believe this was used to set up Aethpis."
"Really. By whom?"
Eamonn felt it was time to bluff. "Did you have a chance to read the coded transmissions on the old FSTAT system?"
"Yes. I read the transcript and it implicates my family."
"Your family?"
"Yes. Did you not infiltrate Aethpis to fabricate more lies?"
"No," he said, wondering how the FSTAT transmission could implicate the Cortez family. "To be honest, I haven’t heard the transmission. I played a hunch that you could decode it."
"My father’s encryption code was used."
The FSTAT transmission puzzled Eamonn, but he thought playing Jan’s angle of a setup seemed to be their best chance of escaping Sarah’s wrath. "And you know nothing of the plans to invade Lunara?"
"Of course not. My family loves Mars."
"Someone is fabricating evidence to implicate Aethpis."
Sarah tensed. "Yes. You!"
"No," he said. "And I can’t believe your family would be so sloppy in covering this up. Someone wants us to think your family is involved."
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 25